My step by step guide to pinup make up!

Firstly, let me begin by saying that I wear make up because I LOVE MAKE UP!!! I love to create, and make up is just another medium for me, like an artist paints a picture, I paint my face.

Using make up I can express different feelings, moods, and even personalities within myself. I do not however, wear makeup to cover things I dislike about myself. Make up is not a mask for me, nor do I use it to feel better about myself. I love my face with or without it, and have no shame in the world seeing me fresh faced. I use make up as a tool of self expression and an outlet to exercise my creativity.

There is nothing 'natural' about my style, and in turn nothing 'natural' about the way I wear my makeup, so this may not be the tutorial for you....... If you are interested in learning how to achieve a 'natural look' post your requests in the comments below and I will do my best to fulfil them.

If full coverage glamour is your cup of tea........ENJOY!!

Step 1. Prepare your base

Read my last post on skincare to prepare your skin for perfect make up application every time. A fresh, well looked after face will make your job so much easier!
Always start with a clean, freshly moisturized face, depending on your skin type you may like to use a primer. Sometimes I use them, sometimes I don't, but my favourite at the moment is Velvet Veil from Miss Kiss Vintage 

After priming, apply your foundation. Depending on what foundation you select will obviously determine what tools you use to apply. Some are better suited to sponges, some brushes, and some are even designed to activate with the heat of your fingertips. For the purpose of this tutorial, I am using Revlon Colourstay Foundation in Ivory, applied with a foundation brush.

Pour a small amount of foundation onto the back of your hand and load up your brush. Apply dots of foundation to cheeks, nose, forehead and chin, and then blend out these dots using your brush to cover your whole face. Cover lips and eyes and be sure to blend foundation into hairline and past jawline.

Then using a powder brush or Kabuki, powder your whole face (I'm using Revlon Colourstay Powder in Pale) to set your foundation. You may also like to give an all over dust of translucent at this point.

If you have areas needing concealing (blemishes, dark circles under eyes or uneven skin tone) apply concealer to these areas and blend out using your fingertips or a small concealer brush. Another coat of translucent powder will set the concealer.

Step 2. Brows

Brows, in my opinion, can make or break a face!! I am blessed with relatively full brows, however I still pencil them in! Full sparse or non-existent, I'm a firm believer in filling them in to some extent as it creates a wonderful frame for the rest of your face. I personally prefer to use a pencil, however there are a plethora of different options available from gels, to powders to stencils!
If you are using a pencil like me (I've used one by Models Prefer available at Priceline), be sure to sharpen it every time, a sharp pencil will give you a precise result whereas a dull edge will result in less than impressive brows, and nobody has time for that!
Begin by outlining the shape you wish to achieve. I like to begin at the base of my brow and follow the natural line, extending the tail out slightly. I then create the arch by extending the line from the top of my brow out past the natural hairs and curving around to meet the base line, if this sounds confusing here is what I mean.

Once you are happy with the shape of your brows, fill in the gaps with your pencil (or powder) keeping away from your natural brows, and then using an angled brush, blend the pencil out through the natural brows to soften the intensity of the guideline you have drawn. Use a small concealer brush with a dab of concealer to sharpen up your edges and once happy give another dust of translucent powder to set everything in place.

Step 3. Eyeshadow

Feel free to skip this step and go right to the liquid liner for an 'everyday' pinup look.

Begin by applying highlighter to your brow bone and across your entire lid, I used Miss Kiss Vintage's illuminator applied with a sponge tip applicator.

Then using a mid brown (I've used Brown Matte from Miss Kiss Vintage) and a sponge tip applicator, apply to the lower lash line and the crease of your eye, starting at the outer corner and finishing 3/4 of the way in.

Take a fluffy brush and run it back and fourth over the harsh edges of the brown to blend it out, it should look like this.

Then take a darker shadow (I used Truffle from Miss Kiss Vintage) and a flat eye shadow brush, and apply again to the crease starting from the outside corner, but this time only work it up 1/2 way.

Using a smaller fluffy brush, blend out the harsh edge.

Step 5. Liquid Liner

The thorn in a lot of peoples sides, however a very necessary part of the pinup look. My favourite has always been Face of Australia Liquid Eyeliner in Black. There are hundreds of options available and it really is personal preference and what you are comfortable with.

The trick to perfect liquid liner is, there is no trick!! Practice makes perfect I'm afraid. I have been wearing black winged liquid liner since the first time I ever wore makeup so have got it down to a fine art now, but honestly it's one of those things you just get better at the more you do it. I like to hold a compact mirror up close to my eye and slightly below it, so I am looking down into the mirror, which stretches out my eyelid for smooth application. I start at the flick, some people start from the corner, again its what ever works for you! So, I work with the line of the bottom of my eye and extend that line continuing the same angle outwards, removing pressure on the brush towards the end to create a tapered flick. I then draw a kind of triangle from my lash line out to meet the flick, and fill in the centre of it. Then from the inner corner of my eye, I taper a line out to sit flush with the wing, and finish by lightly smoothing out any bumps in the line by filling in any wiggles in the line with the very tip of the brush.

An angled brush dipped in the tiniest amount of black shadow run along the bottom lash line from the outside corner to 1/4 of the way in will nicely finish your liner.

Step 6. Mascara

As I have very fair, long , thick natural lashes, I need to wear mascara even if I plan to wear false lashes, as my luscious blonde lashes look silly on the underside of my jet black falsies! If you have naturally dark lashes, feel free to skip the mascara if you wear false lashes, or in turn, feel free to skip the false lashes if you get the desired result using only mascara. I, never one to do anything by halves, always wear both!!

Apply mascara to your top lashes, concentrating on the lashes closest to your nose, these lashes need a good coating of mascara as they are what will blend into your false lashes should you choose to wear them.

I am in constant re-evaluation as to weather or not to apply mascara to my bottom lashes, up to you entirely whether you do or don't. Mine are naturally very long so without mascara, I find I achieve more of a doe-eyed look and with mascara maybe I feel like it closes up my eyes a little bit? Either way, for this tutorial I have applied mascara to my bottom lashes on the outside corners only.

Lash application is another practice makes perfect situation, however here are some handy hints to de-mystify the situation a little.

* False lashes should not come all the way in to the inside corner of your eye, this will close the eye up and camouflage all the hard work you have put in to your eye shadow.
* Trim your strip lashes from the outside edge to properly fit the width of your eye, ideally the lash should come 3/4 of the way in to the corner of your eye and blend into your natural lashes.
* Apply the glue to the edge of your false lashes, not your eye. Then blow on the glue for 10 seconds or so to encourage the glue to get tacky, this will help the lash to grab straight away rather than slide around on your eye.
*I like to use a pair of tweezers to apply my lashes looking down into the mirror of a handheld compact, this way your eyes are open, but lowered enough to be able to see where to attach the lash.
* Place the edge of the strip lash as close to your lash line as possible attaching the centre first, then using the pointy end of the tweezers to attach the outer then inner corners.
*Using the end of a make up brush or the blunt end of your tweezers, poke the entire lash line to fuse the lash in place.

In this picture I am wearing Miss Kiss Vintage human hair lashes in Screen Siren.

Step 7. Contour

There is a whole lot of buzz around the art of contour at the moment. Some people LOVE it, and some people HATE it. Also, like everything in the land of make up, there are a million different degrees of contour as well as a boat load of products available to achieve your desired result.

I guess you could say my taste for contour sits about mid range. I absolutely appreciate the artistry in good contour, and the incredible transformations one can achieve when skilled at the craft. The thing with contour though, is that everyone's face is different, and no one method is going to work for every shape face...remember this people!!

When contouring my own face, there is not really much about the structure of my face that I wish to change, so for me a bit of bronzer dusted diagonally from the top of my ear to almost the corner of my mouth accentuates my cheekbones enough that I'm done. A quick swipe of coral shimmer highlighter from the Body Shop across the apples of my cheeks, gives me a bit of colour in my face without looking rosy, and if I'm feeling particularly fancy a swish of golden glow illuminator from Miss Kiss Vintage across the height of my cheekbones and the bow of my top lip.

Step 8. Lips

Lips can be broken into a few steps depending on the look you wish to achieve, but for this tutorial its a straight forward two step process.

Lip liner can be a wonderful tool for altering your pout without the need for invasive procedures, lining slightly outside your natural lip line with a slightly darker pencil than your lipstick or gloss can give you the illusion of a much fuller pout, but be careful not to go over board. A line pencilled in too far from your lips natural edge can be very obvious!

I was blessed with a naturally pouty kisser, and for this reason simply line my lips natural shape, if anything, I line on the inside edge rather than the outside to save may natural lips from looking TOO full. Put simply, I use lip liner as a guide to 'colour in' with my lipstick. Like with your eyebrow pencil, be sure to sharpen your lip liner before you begin, to ensure a crisp sharp line to work from. I have used MAC lip pencil in Cherry.

Then, all that's left is to fill in the space you've outlined with colour!

Lipstick has made a massive comeback in the last few years, with an entire rainbow of possibilities. This, for someone like me is both wonderful and devastating at the same time.....I could literally go broke from my lipstick addiction!!

Due to being lazy, I have a huge LOVE for matte glosses. The idea that once my make up is done, I don't need to re-apply my lipstick throughout the day excites me no end, and also my nature is to greet everyone I see with a kiss, so not branding everyone with an imprint of my pout is another huge plus!

I encourage you to experiment with different colours when choosing a lipstick for the pinup look. Red is not your only option, and I often parade a brightly painted pout in all kind of colours like pinks, purples and my personal favourite, orange.

When talking traditional though, a pinup's best friend is her red lipstick, and I am a firm believer that there is a shade out there for everyone, so if you haven't found yours yet....KEEP LOOKING!!

Here I've used my tried and true never fail RED VELVET velvetiness from Lime Crime. 

And there you have it!! Pinup make up in 8'ish easy (once you get the hang of it) steps!!

I love, love, LOVE reading your feedback, so please direct all comments and questions to the Comments section below. I'll get back to you all as soon as I can.

Till next time