Illustrating various makeup artistic uses for the Evian Brumi (spray) while I was L’Oreal’s Makeup Director for the Dubai Fashion Week in 2009

Incredibly hectic backstage before the shows but somehow we managed to keep the area clear and shoot this in 5 mins flat! This being Dubai and the air con on the fritz, made for one HOT shoot not to mention HOT fashion week!

For my inaugural video makeup tutorial, I thought I would start with how to use brighteners or light diffusers on various points of the face especially under the eyes. Many people confuse these products with concealers but you can either use these on top of your concealer or alone to knock out slight shadows that make you appear older than you are.

Great products for light diffusing are: YSL’s Touch Eclat, La Prairie’s Light Fantastic, L’Oréal’s Touche Magique, Bobbi Brown’s Tinted Eye Brightener, Make Up For Ever’s Lift Concealer and many others. Enjoy!

There is a reason we speak of beautiful “blushing” brides because that is what love, health and youth look like on the skin. So many people concentrate on the eyes and the lips, but a gorgeous flush is what makes the skin really glow.

Try this 3-step technique to really make the most of your cheekbones even when you think you don’t have much in that area!

1) Contour with a bronzer, contour shadow or darker foundation
2) Add a bright blush to the apples of your cheeks (smile!)
3) Highlight the top of your cheeks with a pearly shimmer to give depth and a dewy glow to your whole face

Good luck and more to come! Let me know your thoughts and comments below…

We are spoilt for color and texture when it comes to products for our lips so where do we start? I’d say start with a lip primer (which can either be a stick or pot concealer, or actual primers made for lips). This erases the color of your lips and leaves an even surface for which you can draw on the lines of your lips (another way to play with the end color result).

Next you can either use a lipstick you can top up with a lip gloss or simply swipe some gloss over the whole thing without lipstick. Beware that using lip gloss alone does not last, so you will have to reapply often.

Note: I meant to say that I would use a lip BRUSH if I were putting lipstick on a client or needing to have more precision applying darker lip colors!

Entertainers like Beyoncé use a matte lipstick without a gloss when dancing on stage so the color stays put and doesn’t melt off during a heated performance.
Have fun mixing more colors for interesting shades of what you already have!

Makeup is a wonderful way to control how light and shadow shape your face and nothing makes a person glow as if from candlelight better than pearly products like Benefit’s Highbeam, Jemma Kidd Makeup School’s Dewy Glow compact, Nars Copacabana shimmer sticks, or simply a pearly eye shadow powder like MAC’s Orb, Naked Lunch and Dazzlelight.

But what do you do with the stuff? Here are some great tips to create light on your skin wherever you want to draw subtle attention from your brown bone to your collarbone and anywhere else you feel it’s appropriate!

This is applicable no matter what skin type or color you are. Use the product sparingly and make sure it is blended well.

Feel free to subscribe if you would like more ideas coming your way…