With 2012 soon to come to a close, most of us have a few Christmas parties and general end of year catch up drinks to attend. This all sounds fun, but depending on how in demand you are, choosing a make-up look to suit the festivities and the start of the summer season can be challenging.
Are we stuck in a rut?
Want to try something new, but not sure If you should just stick to the good old faithful make-up look?
What shades go with everything and every occasion?
And the answer is… GOLD!
Gold can be dressed up, or dressed down. It can be sophisticated enough for a red carpet event or just a wash over the eyelids for the beach. Definitely my choice for this upcoming summer, festive party season!
There are many different shades of gold from deep bronze and copper golds, great for adding depth, then white golds for highlighting. No matter your skin tone, gold can really warm up and eliminate the pale, ‘pink’ base skin of a fair skin/hair woman and then really compliment the olive tone skins.
Gold can also suit every eye colour!
The warmth of the shade really contrasts against cool coloured eyes, like blue or green, by warming them up and bringing them out.
Brown eyes are lucky as can wear many colours that contrast, bringing out the colour more, like blue, green, and purple! But, not many women are that adventurous, so adding gold is a natural way to gain some contrast without feeling to bright.
MB pro Beauty tip – Lighter, white and rose golds look great on pale skins and deep orange based golds really stand out and compliment olive skin tones.
Wearing gold all over the eye area is not the answer ladies, but adding gold over a contour shade can work wonders.
Once your base colour, normally deeper than your skin tone and matte, like a taupe, caramel, brown or a bronzer has been applied in the socket area, it is then time to add in some fun.
A contour shade will normally do just that, contour! It can sculpt and lift the socket area, which sometimes can be slightly puffy or have a skin fold.
By adding a deeper, matte shade this recedes this area back, giving it shape – the best anti-age secret with age!
The best places to add gold are right on the centre area of the mobile eyelid, basically when you close your eye, the round section where the eyeball sits.
This is what I call the ‘pop’ colour!
When you blink, look down, this little pop of gold flashes through, giving more dimension to the eye, contrasting against your matte or slightly deeper socket shade.
Pop colours can be any shade as when your eye is open, you hardly see the colour as your lids are behind your socket, only showing it off when closed or blinking. With this in mind, any shade of gold can be applied on the mobile eyelid.
Deeper golds can be great for a bronzed smokey eye, and the brighter gold’s look fab on the olive skins.
Lighter golds in this area can be great to really focus and bring forward the mobile lid – great for puffy eyes which can overtake this area, or pale skin.
MB pro Beauty tip – The lighter the gold, the larger the area will look as it causes more light reflection, than that of a dark or matte shade which recedes.
My fave gold pigments are from Vani-T!
Love a loose dust as you can use as little or keep layering for an intense sheen across the mobile eyelids.
Image: Forged Gold Vani-T (left) and 24k Gold Vani-T Mineral Colour Crystals from www.vani-t.com RRP $30.85
Light or white golds are also great in the inner V, or known as the tear duct area. Great to pull focus away from dark shadows and lighten up a sometimes-dark area – very elegant!
Under the brow is great also for these shades of gold. Gone are the days of the stark white look under brows!! It can be so sharp looking, unnatural and can close the eye as white can make an area larger, overtaking the other parts of the eye.
The best part about Gold make-up is you can pretty much wear any shade all day, then just add a touch gold to the inner eye or pop colour on mobile lid in one dab of a brush and you are then ‘party’ ready!
To really jazz up the look, or id eye shadow is not your cup of tea, try a bronze or gold eyeliner!
Bronze is the new brown; it is not as flat and has traces of gold in it to really give a little more fun to the overall look.
I like adding a lighter gold eyeliner in the inner of the eye on top or bottom lids, then add bronze on the outer areas – great to even smudge a bit of the bronze liner up into the eye for a shadow effect!
My fave this season is the double-ended Napoleon Perdis, Liquid eyeliner. Bronze on one side and gold shimmer on the outer – perfect party season product.
Image: Napoleon Perdis Set Day-to-Night Liquid Eyeliner Duo in Los Cabos RRP:$20
So ladies, gold it is this season!
No matter what your skin tone, eye colour or hair colour is, a shade of gold is waiting for you to jazz up your look this party season.
Go for Gold!
By Michael Brown
Twitter: @mbrown_beauty
Facebook: facebook.com/michaelbrownbeauty
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