mac makeup tutorial

Over the past few years there have been makeup trends that I have been dying to try but somehow I’ve just never got the hang of it. The smokey eye, the bright red lip, liquid eyeliner with the flick, all trends for some reason look amazing on my favourite stars but I just can’t replicate that look. Recently I have also been considering a career in makeup artistry, but I can’t commit to going back to study at the moment. So I booked myself into one of the makeup tutorials at the MAC counter at my local department store so that I could learn how to do things like the smokey eye and finally find a lipstick colour that doesn’t make me look washed out in photos but also so that I could learn some techniques and use these when applying makeup to other people. Volunteers anyone?

I wasn’t brave enough to go in there fresh faced in the morning with all my blemishes showing so I put my foundation on, only to take it all off when I got there. The girl who did my makeup, Grace, was lovely. She listened to me, asked what my skin was like and after putting on moisturiser she applied MAC BB Cream. This was the first time I have used BB Cream after hearing great things about it and I wasn’t disappointed. It was light and covered my face well, giving me the perfect amount of coverage. After this she applied concealer to my blemishes and under my eyes, (I had particularly big bags under my eyes that day). Then she showed me how to apply bronzer to my upper cheek bones and temples and then blusher on my cheeks. Next she came over with an eyebrow pencil. I’ve always thought of eyebrow pencils as one of those things that girls use if they shave their eyebrows off and draw them back on again, resulting in extremely fake looking eyebrows. I was very sceptical about it but once she had filled in my brows I was shocked at the difference. I wasn’t sure I liked it. I’ve spent 24 years of my life being an eyebrow pencil sceptic and here someone was showing me what my eyebrows look like when they are complete. It kind of made me look like my eyebrows were shaping my eyes a bit more.

Next she moved onto my eyes and showed me how to create the classic smokey eye look with more neutral colours that were suitable for work. First a lighter colour in the inner corner of my eye then a medium colour from the middle of my eye and swept outwards and then blended into the first colour and then lastly the darkest of the three shades sweeped round the eyelid in a kind of C shape. And the best part is is that this technique can be applied to any colour, so at the weekend I will try it with greys and blacks to create the ultimate smokey eye look. Then she moved on to show me how to do liquid eyeliner, saying that you should do it in a dashed line along your lid from the middle outwards and then the middle inwards and if you want that flick at the end, aim for your temple and then connect it up to the rest of the eyeliner. She insisted that the technique for applying mascara is all the same though.

Lastly we were onto lipsticks! Yay! I actually showed her a few pictures of Emma Watson from her red carpet appearances over the last few months for award season and the premieres for Noah because I love the colours that she has used and how they look so natural on here. So Grace hooked me up with some colours just like the ones that she has worn. Finally some Fix+ spray to set my look. See below for my final looks, with both different lipsticks. The great thing about this tutorial was that it cost $150 but all of that money was redeemable on products, so I splashed out and treated myself to both the lipsticks (because I couldn’t choose), the blusher and the Fix+ Spray. I learnt so much in this tutorial and I am very grateful to have learnt so much that I can use on a day to day basis and apply to others before I can study to become a makeup artist. I am still an eyebrow pencil sceptic though.