Do your hair before starting your makeup. Hair is usually easier to accomplish than makeup, so once you have it done, you’ll have plenty of time to work on your face. Plus, it gets the hair out of your way while you work.
What You Need
Here are some of the things you’ll need.
Brushes
I advise getting good quality makeup brushes with fine soft bristles. They don’t have to be expensive, but the better your brushes are, the easier it will be to apply your makeup. You’ll certainly need a rouge or blusher brush, but here are some other kinds you might want to use:
• eyeliner brush, to apply cake eyeliner
• a socket brush, for shading into the eye socket line
• quarter inch contour brushes, to apply highlighter and eye-shadow
• a lip brush
• a powder brush, for dusting off excess powder
makeup sponge
Be kind to your face and get a good quality sponge that’s made especially for makeup. It can be a foam or a
natural sponge, and either wedges or disks.
facial cleanser or soap a small towel and tissues toner or astringent
Concealer (Optional) Concealer covers small blemishes and dark spots. Try to get a grease-based
concealer stick in a shade that matches your skin.
foundation
There is a wide varietyof foundations out there – you can visit makeup counters at a department store to get advice, or pick up your makeup in a Walgreen’s, but whatever kind you get, the most important thing is to
find a good color that suits you.
eye shadow
You’ll need a small palette of shadows that includes three or four neutral colors, from darker to very pale shades. Pressed powders are the best choice, and you’ll want to get a matte powder, not pearlized or iridescent. Avoid bright blues or pinks or greens until you’re more experienced with your makeup. A good starting set should include a dark chocolate brown, a beige or tan, and a pale color that’s nearly, but not
quite white. If you have much darker skin – Indian or African, for instance – try to find deeper shadow
colors like plum or dark purple, but still include a lighter shade as well.
eyeliner or pencil liner
Liners come in many colors, but work in in brown or black preferably.
mascara
Liquid mascara comes in lots of colors, but try to stay with a color that is close to your natural hair color or a little darker.
blush
Blush should be a rosy color that complements your complexion – you’ll use it to bring out color in your face.
lipstick
Choose a lipstick that is matte, not iridescent or glossy in finish.
In general stay away from colors that are too bright like neon pink or bright red.
loose powder
A loose, translucent powder is great for setting the makeup on your face.
Before you get started, lay a washcloth down at your spot on the dressing table. Then line up your
brushes and all the makeup you plan to use on it. Not only will it be handy to wipe excess makeup on the cloth, but it will keep things from rolling around on the table
Preparing your face
Take a look at your face in the mirror. What do you think your best features are? Bright eyes? Full lips? High
cheekbones? The way that you apply your makeup should help highlight your best features, while also bringing out the basic structure of your face.
clean, clean, clean
The most important thing to remember, whether for day-to-day makeup or stage makeup, is to always work clean. If you perform onstage on a regular basis, the constant use of makeup will take its toll on your skin, and you want to keep it in the best possible condition. ALWAYS start out by cleaning your face and neck thoroughly and taking care of your skin. Don’t apply moisturizers or lotion once you’ve cleaned, as the oil and water in them will make it harder to apply your makeup and really make it “stick.” Instead use a toner
or light astringent such as “Clean & Clear” or witch hazel. Toners and astringents close your pores, which helps keep makeup from clogging them. This is also a good time to take off all your jewelry and also remove any colored nail polish.
foundation
Foundation, or base, is the layer of makeup that evens out your skin tone and is the “clean canvas” on which you’ll apply your makeup. There are two kinds of foundation: oil-based (makeup sticks, Pan-Sticks, creams, wet cakes) and water-based (pancake, liquid foundation). The most important thing, though, is making sure that you choose a color that suits your basic skin tone. People with Asian or Latina backgrounds, for instance, often need a color that has more yellow than pink in it.
Many people also like to use what is called “cover-stick” or “concealer,” to help cover up small blemishes or darker areas of the skin. Concealer is usually a grease-based makeup that comes in a stick or a little pot, and is a denser version of your foundation. Choose a shade of concealer that closely matches your
skin color.
Got a tattoo?
You’ll have to cover it up for performances.You can use layers of concealer and powder, or you can also
purchase a grease-based cover-up makeup like Mehron’s Tattoo Cover Palette.
Apply your concealer before your foundation. You can put a little onto a sponge or onto your fingertip and then dab over the spots you wish to cover. Typical spots that need concealer are the darker circles under the eyes, the groove on either side of your nose and the divet underneath your lower lip. Now begin to apply your foundation. If you’re using water- based pancake foundation, you may want to fill a small bowl or
cup with water to dampen your sponge. Collect a little bit of makeup on the sponge and begin to apply it to your face. I like to start with going down the nose, and then sweeping in short outward strokes across the cheeks, out along the eye sockets, across the forehead, chin and over your mouth (yes, over the whole mouth, lips included.) You want a nice smooth, even appearance that covers your whole face, right to the
hairline, all the way over your chin, and don’t forget to cover your neck.
You don’t want to look like you have a mask of color that’s only on your face! Check in the mirror to see that you haven’t missed any spots.
eyes
Your face will look a little strange because it’s all “blanked out.” Next let’s fill in your eyes.
For a small theater, you probably won’t need false eyelashes – mascara will be enough – although ladies with shorter eyelashes may want to wear them anyhow. I won’t go into the instructions for applying them here, but ask if you need help.
Next you’ll want to apply your eye shadow colors. Until you become more experienced with your makeup, stick with neutral colors in shades of brown and black. Then when you have the sense of what looks good on your face, you can experiment with blues and greens and pinks. Pressed powder eye shadow will be the easiest to work with and you may want to purchase a palette of different shades, although when you do your makeup, three different shades of color should be enough. Most eye shadows come with a sponge-tip pplicator, or you can use a small, quarter-inch tip brush to apply the shadow.
Gently run your fingertip across the top of your eye socket, feeling where the curve of the bone is. You’ll
want to shade in this line to accentuate the shadow of your eye socket using a fairly dark color, like chocolate brown. Sweep your applicator from the inside corner (nearer your nose) and gently arching outward.
Now look at the space between the line you just drew and the top lashes. Using a lighter neutral color like beige or tan, fill in the space again, starting in the inner corner and sweeping out.
Then look at the space between your dark shadow and your eyebrow. You want to highlight the curve and lift of your brow by filling in a lighter color just underneath the arch of the brow.
Now, if you’re doing a heavier version of stage makeup, you’ll want to draw in thin lines to accentuate your eyes using an eyeliner pencil or liquid eyeliner. This is probably the most time-consuming part of any dancer’s makeup process, because you want to make sure that not only are your lines the right shape, but
also that the lines on one eye mirror the lines on the other eye! Whether you’re using liquid liner or an eyeliner pencil, the lines are the same, but keep in mind that sweat can sometimes make liquid eyeliner run.
When creating your lines, keep in mind that the goal is to make your eyes look a little larger than usual. At any point as you’re making up, feel free to step back a few feet from the mirror and look at yourself
to see if you’re getting the right overall effect. Sometimes it’s hard to see how things look if you’re too close to the mirror.
To draw the top line, begin at the inside corner of your eye. Draw your line on the eyelid fairly close to the upper lashes until you get to the middle of the bulge of your eye. From there, start to take the line away from the lash line, so that it eventually runs almost straight outward. Ideally, your line will extend a little bit further out than your actual lashes.
The bottom line will be similar to the top, but will be a little
straighter across, instead of following along the curve of the
eye. Begin your line a little further out from the corner of
the eye on the bottom side and starting close to the lower
lashes, trace the line until you get to the widest part of the
eye. From that point, continue your line straight out, so that
it is eventually running parallel to your top line, with a little
bit of space between them.
The larger you’d like your eyes to appear, the wider apart
the spacing between these lines, particularly at the outside
corner.
Check your lines again to make sure that your eyes look even – and that one doesn’t look larger than the other! If you need to correct a line, or remove it, simply dampen your foundation sponge, apply a tiny bit of foundation, and then dab away the line.
Now using the light colored eye shadow and the very tip of your brush or applicator, carefully fill in the space between the two lines at the outer corner of each eye.
Next you’ll want to apply some mascara. You should pick a mascara color that is close to your natural hair color. Apply two coats of mascara to your eyelashes, being sure to coat both the top and bottom lashes.
Your should also fill in your eyebrows, especially if your hair is light in color. Using a brown or black brow or liner pencil, carefully draw in a little color onto the brow in gentle, short, hair- length strokes. Follow the natural arch of your brow, and remember you’re not trying to make the brow look heavy, you just want to fill it in a little.
Check the look in the mirror again.
Do your eyes look larger?
Do they look even?
Cheeks and shadows
For your cheeks, you’ll want to add some color. Blushes or rouge comes in crème and powder form, but for either kind, you want to make sure that you don’t look like you have a
stripe on your cheeks.
Look in the mirror and smile hard. The bulges in your cheeks are called the apples. Begin by brushing or smoothing your blush onto the apple of your cheek and drawing the brush back along your cheekbone towards your hair. At this point, you can also fill in some of the shadows that frame your face. Take the blush brush and pick up a little of the mid-tones to dark-toned eye-shadow and brush a little of it along your jaw-line to accent the bone, and also along your hairline to fill in the area of your hair that frames your
face.
lips
Finally, apply your lip color. For most stage appearances, you’ll want to choose a color that complements your coloring and is bright but not neon. In general, you should stay away from colors like fire-engine red, or neon pink.
To give definition to your lips, you can outline them with a lip liner and then fill in the color.
To make a longer lasting lip color, apply it once, blot with a tissue, and dust on a translucent powder. Then apply your lipstick again, blot and then powder again.
Always remember to clean your face thoroughly when
removing your makeup.
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