My face makeup routine

When I go to do my makeup everyday, the most important thing for me is to start off with a flawless looking canvas. I know a lot of girls just slap on some foundation and call it a day. A lot of people might watch me do my makeup and be like "what in the H is she doing?". I take a lot of steps in my face makeup routine but it is well worth it. I notice a lot of girls makeup looking cakey or not the right clour for their skin. It is important to know how to achieve great looking skin using makeup.



So, here is my routine,



step one: I always start off with a fresh clean face. I can't stress this enough to people, you need to clean off ALL of your makeup from the night before!! It's so important!



step two: I use a moisterizer or a primer to prep my skin. I almost always reach for a moisterizer to prep my skin, but you can always use primer if thats what you like. I like to use St. Ives Moisterizer with vitamin E. Vitamin E is really great for your skin because it helps with acne scars and healing any acne on your face. I have really dry skin so moisterizer works really well for me. I would normally give the moisterizer a few minutes to really soak into my skin before i continue with the rest of my routine.



step 3: Next, I use a bb cream and I apply it evenly over my entire face and neck. I make sure there are no harsh edges and that it is blended really well into my hairline and around my ears. If you don't know what bb cream is then you can go check out my other blog on bb creams. I am a huge supporter of bb creams and I think everyone should use it. It is basically a tinted moisterizer that has a bit more coverage than most tinted moisterizers.



step 4: This step I skip on a day to day basis, I only do this step if I'm going out at night or I just want the extra coverage. I take my favourite MAC foundation and apply some to the back of my hand and use my stippling brush to stipple it all over my face. I like using a stippling brush because it really gets into every angle and crease to give you great, airbrushed looking coverage.



step 5: I use concealer at this point. I know a lot of people do it before foundation but I like to do it after foundation but before powder. Now I always use one of my high end concealers at this point so it usually blends really well into my skin tone. This could be different for other people. The places on my face I usually conceal is, under my eyes, around my nose (because it tends to be red) my eyelids to help conceal any veins and to create a base for eyeshadow, and then of course any blemishes I may have on my face.



step 6: I take a highlighter and put it on all the HIGH parts of my face. I put it down the centre of my nose, across my cheek bones, my brow bones, right about my upper lip, and just a bit on my chin. This gives a great dewy look to your skin. It helps everything look natural and not like you put a lot of effort into your makeup.



step 7: I take a face powder and apply it over my entire face and jawline to set myy foundation, concealer and highlighter.



step 8: Then I take my clinique bronzer (which is amazing!) and I LIGHTLY dust it over my entire face. I have very fair skin, and I am very picky about bronzer because it always ends up being very dark on me. I chose this clinique bronzer because it is close to my skin tone. My face is a bit lighter than the skin on the rest of my body so this is why I apply it over my entire face, to help it match. This bronzer also doesnt have much glitter in it so it doesnt look silly over your entire face. I use a kabuki brush for this.



step 9: Then I take the same bronzer and use a thinner, fluffy face brush. I suck in my cheeks and I use the bronzer as a contour for my cheeks. I make sure to blend this out really well. You dont want any harsh lines on your face. Keep it natural! This helps your face look slimmer and more contoured.



step 10: The final step in my routine is blush. Again, I have fair skin, so I always go for a light pink blush. I like to use elf blush products, they are very easy to blend and don't overpower my skin.



So this completes my routine, I didn't plan for it to work out to be ten steps. HAHA! I hope this helps someone out there. If anyone has any questions please feel free to ask me.



Thanks so much for reading everyone! :)

BB Cream!

These are 2 examples of what bb creams look like.

            BB Cream (or Blemish Balm Cream) is a type cream for your face that asian women are in love with! It is like a tinted moisterizer with a bit more coverage and a lot more benefits for your skin. People say that it was created in Germany by dermatologists to help people with serious skin conditions or people who may have had any surgery done to their face. It was created to help with the redness and scarring and things like that on peoples faces. When this product became available for the public, it became a big craze. To be honest, I can really understand why it became so popular so quickly.

One of the great things about bb cream is that it can actually help with acne WHILE giving you coverage and can help get rid of any acne scars you may have from the past.
Another plus to bb cream is that it helps whiten your skin. And i dont mean that it makes you pastey white, I mean that it helps to even out your skin tone and reduce redness.
BB cream is also beneficial for your skin because it is great for anti-aging as well as helping to reduce the look of fine lines that you might already have for your face.
The coverage of BB cream isn't AS GREAT as a foundation but it is definitly more coverage than a tinted moisterizer. So people who might have more acne than others may want to use concealer for extra coverage.
The bb cream formula also leaves your skin looking dewy and healthy.
I rarely ever use any foundation, I pretty much only use my bb cream and concealer if I need it.

A downfall to the bb cream is that the shades it comes in are very limited. The formula seems to be geared more towards girls with lighter skin rather than girls who have darker skin. I could be wrong (if i am wrong, someone please let me know!). I have looked at bb creams at many different sites on the internet like http://www.ebay.com/ and http://www.sasa.com/ and http://www.imomoko.com/ and have still yet to find darker shades.

Another downfall that I find with bb cream is that it tends to make my skin a bit more oily. Not like crazy oily or anything, but more oily than normal. I tend to have dry skin usually. I usually apply a light translucent powder over top to help with the oiliness.

Overall though I think BB cream was a great invention and we need to start getting it over to north america because it tends to be hard to find in stores. You can probably get it from sephora and unfortunately the closest one to me is about 4 hours away. :( wah wahhhh. I always buy my bb creams online. Much easier for me that way.

A lot of people who I talk to here in Canada have never even heard of bb cream and I want to make it a more well known product because I think everyone should be able to enjoy it! You can even buy bb creams for men as well which I think is so great!

This blog is getting quite long because there is so much to say so if i missed anything you should definitly look into bb cream and try it out and let me know what you think!! Thanks for reading!!!