Getting ready for a first date is tricky; on the one hand, you probably carefully consider your ensemble and overall look as impressing your date is most likely a priority. On the other, you want to be yourself and feel comfortable, while looking and feeling pretty at the same time. Here are a few minor tips and tricks to enhance your look, whatever it may be, so you can feel as charming as you look:
NATURAL
If you’re the type that likes your makeup to enhance your features subtly rather than look like you’re wearing makeup, prepping and highlighting are two super sly ways to achieve maximum glowiness while still looking natural. Firstly, prepping skin with illuminizing primer pre-foundation helps makeup stay in place longer while giving dull skin a mega boost. Smashbox
Photo Finish Luminizing Foundation Primer is packed with vitamins and antioxidants to battle dullness, while its micro-luminizing, super silky formula creates a flawless base. Subtle highlighting also brings freshness and dewiness to skin, and the most universally flattering shade is champagne. Benefit’s Watt’s Up! wand is the perfect shade, has just the right amount of shimmer, AND features a dual ended tube; one end is the creamy highlighter, the other a blending sponge to soften and impart the most natural glow ever. Apply to high planes of the face: down the bridge of the nose, cheekbones, eyebrow bones, eye tear ducts, and for that little something extra, put the product on fingertips and gently tap ultra-lightly in the centre of your chin and apples of your cheeks. Swirl on some creamy Soleil Tan De Chanel for a bronzy glow or Nars blush in Orgasm for a natural flush and just like that, it’s you, enhanced.
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FLIRTY
Flirty makeup looks are all about lashes, lashes, lashes. Real or faux, achieving a long, lush set lashes is a piece of cake. If you’re not into the false variety, a lash primer is a must. Nothing beats Tarte’s MultiplEYE Clinically-Proven Natural Lash Enhancing Primer, which boasts a whopping 739 per cent volume increase in lashes with immediate use, and has a growth serum to enhance length over time. Bam. Top with a badass, carbon black, shine-enhancing mascara, such as Too Faced Better Than Sex Mascara, and you’re better than good to go. False lashes can look natural – just use the individual variety and focus on the outer edges for a more flirty look. If you’re going all out and using a strip, make sure to measure and trim prior to application, and let the glue dry for about 15 seconds on the strip before applying; tacky glue sticks better and won’t slip. A slim flick of eyeliner will also enhance that flirty, doe-eyed look and is best done with a gel formula or a pen-like stylo. Yves Saint Laurent Eyeliner Effet Faux Cils Bold Felt Tip Eyeliner Pen is ultra precise and long-lasting and is easy to build a sublte or dramatic swoosh. For a gel formula, try Bobbi Brown Long Wear Gel-Eyeliner; easier than liquid, more precise and budge-proof, this is the stuff dreams are made of.
VIXEN
If you’re more of a va-va-voom kind of gal, smudgy, sexy eyes were made for you. Chanel Illusion D’ombre Long Wear Luminous Eyeshadow’s cushiony, gel-cream formula is ultra buildable, super smudgeable, all kinds of shimmery and very sexy. Vixen’s also tend to be a little more high maintenance, so overlooking eyebrows, which can really determine whether you look is pulled together or lost, would be a serious no-no. Tweezerman’s Slant Tweezer, (in stainless steel for traditional vixens or leopard print or hot pink for vivid vixens) are inarguable the most boss tweezers out there. Groomed brows may also need a bit of filling in to ensure evenness and presence on the face; Tarte’s Amazonian Clay Waterproof Brow Mousse has a unique formula unlike most pencils and powders designed for brows. Never chalky, harsh, or waxy, the formula comes with a dual-ended applicator, with one end a mascara wand and the other an angled brush for perfectly precise brows with amazing staying power. Lips must also be dressed up a little, and the easiest, most low-maintenance way that still oozes visen-y goodness is by using a good lip stain. Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics’ Lip Tar is top; it comes in about a bazillion shades and finishes, is vegan-friendly, smells minty fresh, and can be applied and forgotten about for hours and hours. This means, of course, a first date kiss is totally not out of the question, because at least you know your lip stain won’t budge!
