How to Get Better at Doing Your Makeup

Hello friends! (I need a new greeting sos)

Last week when I was at the grocery store (there’s a cafe there which is where I study) I was asked by the barista how I got so good at makeup. And this got me thinking, I’m sure there are so many people who are wondering the same thing. It can be difficult when you’re looking at Instagram photos or YouTube videos of people who are great at makeup and then you feel like you suck. I know I was pretty shit at makeup when I first got into it. So today I’m going to talk about how you can get better at doing your makeup.

The first thing to keep in mind is that practice makes perfect (CLICHE AF no regrets). It’s like any other art or talent, you’re not going to be amazing at it when you first start out. There are a few ways to practice doing makeup. My first tip would be to slowly build your way up. Start with 2-3 skills you want to master, for example applying a nice base with concealer, powder, blush, and some highlight. Then start wearing that out during the day when you can. If you’ve never been much of a makeup wearer, wearing a full face of makeup will make you feel ridiculous (perhaps even like a clown?). So this way you can practice a few skills at a time while building up your comfort to wear the makeup out. For example, I only started being comfortable wearing eye shadow on a regular basis like 8 months ago.

Another way to practice is to put on makeup at night before you are going to wash your face. This is the technique I used to get better at eye shadow as well as winged eye liner. I’d do a smokey eye with no other makeup, take a picture so I can look back on it, then wash it off and go to bed. This way if you mess up your makeup, who cares you’re going to bed anyways. This also allows you room to be creative or “risky” with your makeup, because if it sucks it’s not like you have to go out somewhere.

Something else that I recommend keeping in mind is that you don’t need a special occasion for makeup. For example, today I have glitter on my eyelids and all I’m going to do is go study. But, by letting myself wear fun makeup even on boring normal days I’ve had way more opportunities to practice that makeup.

My last tip is to watch YouTube tutorials. I rarely follow what the tutorial tells me to do but just watching how other people do their makeup can teach you new techniques you might not have figured out on your own. If you don’t have the patience for tutorials, I’d recommend still watching a few but maybe change the speed to 1.5x or 2x (I only watch at 2x) because you don’t need to catch every little thing that happens.

So to sum it up into a quick list my tips are:

1. Practice as much as possible
2. Get used to wearing makeup
3. Build up different skills gradually
4. Watch YouTube tutorials

And now just for fun here are some of the looks I wore to Whole Foods: