I don’t know about you, but when we went fully virtual a couple of years ago it forced me to look at my face for hours each day on the screen. I started to notice that the features on my face were starting to fade, like the contrast between my features and my skin color were set too low.
Color Contrast
If you look at faces across the board there’s a huge spectrum of contrast, from low to high. For some of us our features, like color of hair, eyebrows and even lips, are close to our skin tone whether it’s pale, pink, red or brown or black so there’s low contrast and at the end of that spectrum the high contrast could be pale skin with very dark features. While there is no better or worse in this spectrum, we make choices with our makeup and color of
clothing and accessories to either blend or enhance.
As a personal stylist I can tell you that adding the right contrast to your face is complimentary but how much you want to contrast is up to you and your personality. What I have observed is that women with low contrast tend to be a bit more low key and let their natural beauty stand out on their own—the best way to add contrast to this look is by adding shine to and around your face like high-gloss lip wear, shimmery highlights around the eyes, temples and forehead, shimmery eye shadows, eyebrow pencil (1-2 shades darker) and mascara, of course. Wearing shinney earrings and necklaces is also another way to brighten the face.
Women with low contrast coloring on the lighter side of the spectrum should wear tops, outerwear and scarves (all things around the face) in saturated colors within a few shades darker to be complementary creating harmony. If light low contrast women wear shades within their own color, they will tend to look washed out. For women with low contrast but on the darker side, contrasting around their face with shimmery metals, whites, nudes, pastels would look really beautiful.
For women with high contrast coloring, I noticed they tend to be a bit more out there, a bit more “look at me” and tend to emphasize their features to create even a bigger contrast and this too can be very beautiful. Women with high contrast don’t have to rely on shimmer and shine products, tops or accessories since their facial features are doing all the work. I do recommend that tops and accessories be worn in high contrasting colors such as white and pastels and bright colors like fuchsia and neon (if that’s your thing). I would caution though, to stay away from clothing too close to your face and body color to keep from looking like one giant, undefined blob.
A Point of Clarification
Now, let me be clear that I believe natural beauty is king queen and then we all have choices to make based on how feel, how we want to express ourselves and our aesthetics. And by no means am I saying one contrast is the gold standard over another. What I am saying here is that wearing the right complimentary colors, shapes and proportions (this is a whole other blog BTW) on both your face and body create a beautiful harmony so you can read like the most thoughtfully put together, confident person in the room.
My Face
But let’s go back for a second to my face. What I saw in the screen two years ago was my eyes fading and my hairline thinning. Since I typically don’t wear lipstick (I end up eating because I am also sipping on coffee or tea) and I wear stud earrings, there was no pizzazz to my face even though I have medium contrast, because I have dark features and olive skin. As I started to go down the internet rabbit hole exploring this, I realized what I had lost was my naturally rosy cheeks and glow to my face I once had.
What happened next could only be attributed to becoming one with the algorithms of Facebook and YouTube because I ended up watching endless videos of women applying makeup like they were ready to go into battle! I also subscribed to Complement (a specialized supplement for vegans that contain minerals good for hair growth) and Vegamour to treat my hair loss (it’s bouncing back!).
These make up tutorials were all teaching me what I already knew about emphasizing and contrasting colors to create harmony, but on the face instead of the body. I joined in on the battle cry but not before switching from power to cream based blush, highlighter and countering products (my foundation was already creamy). Powders tend to make the face look powdery and matted emphasizing every nook and cranny on the skin. And since our skin becomes dryer as we age, it could benefit from the moisturizing effects of creamy products as well as the shimmery, dewy consistency. (BTW in my quest, I found a new clean make up line that I highly recommend called Westman Atelier.)
After watching several tutorials I went to work: I first dotted my dark spots with a concealer and then applied a light cover all over my face with a foundation stick blending it all with small taps with a blending sponge (or sometimes my finger)--note that the video I included here recommends the sponge being damp. Then, with a contour stick I marked around my hairline, my cheekbones, along both sides of the bridge of my nose and made a line across the tip of my big nose (the shadow will make my nose look shorter), tapped underneath my bottom lip and all along my jawline; and I dotted a line with a pink blush above the cheek contour line. Lastly, I took the highlighter stick and generously applied it to my upper cheeks up to my temples and then drew a vertical line on my forehead, bridge of my nose, upper lip and chin in a straight line. (BTW, shimmery highlighters to me are similar to what acid (e.g., lime, vinegar) does to any recipe, it wakes it up!) Once I looked like Rambo’s sidekick, I start to blend everything in.
I have also upped my jewelry game, by wearing bigger earrings than just studs and layering my chains as much as possible. I’m really into dainty jewelry (probably because I'm petite) and I don’t feel comfortable wearing big hoops or large necklaces so wearing chunky small earrings does the trick as well as layering my necklaces.
Conclusion
I wear more make up now than I ever have (I also added eyeliner, but I still can’t wear lipstick consistently), but honestly, I’m loving the results! I got my pizzazz back with a natural make up finish that I feel comfortable wearing and I look natural and healthy--oh, how I wish I had discovered this long ago!
So, if you ever look at yourself in the mirror and wonder why you are looking a little blah, it might be because you are not considering how those colors look on your face and body. So stick to the golden rule, dress your face (and your body)!