Day to Night Makeup Steps

Long day at the office and no time to start fresh with your makeup before heading to dinner or a night out on the town? Follow these steps to touch-up your makeup and effortlessly take your look from day to night!

Written by Christine Conrad, Green Health Research Contributor

Step One: Touch Up Foundation and Concealer

Throughout the day your makeup has probably faded and your face may now have a little shine to it. First use a blotting paper, or toilet paper if you’re in a pinch, and blot any excess oil off your face. Next simply use a small amount of foundation to refresh the areas that need a touch up. Dust a light layer of powder over your face to prevent any shine from recurring and to seal your newly applied foundation.

Step Two: Highlight Your Features

Use a light application of highlighter to bring out your natural bone structure and enhance your features. Look for a highlighter with silver tones if you have a cool skin tone, or a highlighter with golden tones if you have a warm skin tone. Apply the highlighter to your brow bones, upper cheek bones, and your collar bone if you’ll be wearing a v-neck top. The highlighter will reflect light off of these areas, enhancing their beauty and prominence, which gives your face and upper body a more defined look.

Remember, a red lip should mean a subdued eye look

Step Three: Choose Either Eyes or Lips

Now you should choose whether you want to draw more attention to your lips or eyes, and then follow that step. You don’t want to use a darker shade on both areas because this will make you look overdone and too made-up. Instead just choose one area to focus on, and then just touch up the other area with the shades you used during the day.

Step Four: Enhance Eyes

If you’ve chosen to play up the look of your eyes, simply follow these instructions. Use darker shades of the colors you’re already wearing on your eyes to create a more smoky nighttime look of your daytime makeup. For example, if you’re wearing light purple eyeshadow, use a darker purple eyeshadow and a dark purple or black eye liner to make a smoky purple eye.

To do a smoky eye use the darker shade of shadow in your crease and blend this lightly down on the outer third of your eyelid. Next, line your eye with your liner, and smudge this line up into the eyeshadow. Use the darker shadow you used in your crease and lightly line your lower lashes. The key to a smoky eye is to blend, blend, blend! You don’t want any invisible lines between your darker and lighter shades of shadow, and no harsh eyeliner line.

Step Five: Luscious Lips

To bring out your lips, simply chose a shade of lipstick that’s about 2 shades darker than the lipstick or gloss you used during the day. Apply this color either with a lip brush for a more precise and lighter application, or directly from the tube for a more intensely colored lip. Blot your lips with a tissue, and then apply the lipstick again.

For a full, pouty lower lip use the lipstick shade you wore during the day and apply a small dab of this shade onto the middle of your lower lip. Blend this very slightly. This lighter color on the middle of your lip will draw attention to the fullness of your lip, making your lips seem larger.

Hopefully these tips will help keep you beautiful during your night out!