Thou Shalt Not Steal… Thou Shalt Not Kill… Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery… Thou Shalt Not Wear the Wrong Foundation Shade. A little melodramatic, maybe. However these are the cardinal makeup rules that I live by.
Commandment #1: Thou Shall Not Use Pencil on Thy Eyebrows
When you pencil in your eyebrows, it almost never looks good. With a pencil, you can always tell someone has filled in their brows.
If you opt for an thin and stiff-angled brush with a powder that best matches your hair color, you will end up looking much more natural, yet still can have defined brows.
This brings me to mistake number two. Your eyebrows are not off the hook yet!
Commandment #2: Thou Shall Not Abuse Thy Eyebrows
As we get older, our brows get thinner and more and more sparse. If you overkill them now, you may never get them back. The more you tweeze, the more you are going to have to fill in some way or another, and the more “unnatural” you will end up looking.
With the right eyebrow shape you can enhance your eyes and really pull your face together in a positive way. It is important to go to a professional for a flattering shape, and from then on all you have to do is basic upkeep to maintain them. Leaving eyebrows unkempt, too thin, or just doing nothing to them 98% of the time will not look good. With very minimal upkeep, you can enhance your whole look!
Commandment #3: Thou Shall Not Apply Makeup to Dry Skin
This is common sense but I admit, I have definitely committed this sin in my time. I will say this though: once you learn from this mistake and start on a face moisturizing regimen, you will never look back. When you put foundation over dry flakey skin, the common misconception is that the foundation will conceal and cover your imperfections. Sadly, this is wrong. It will sit on top of the flakes and emphasize them, instead of blending them in.
Exfoliating your skin regularly will get rid of the dead/dry skin and flakes. My favorite exfoliant is available at any drug store for just shy of 4 bucks. St. Ives Apricot Scrub is amazingand you will swear by this product.
Follow exfoliating with a rich moisturizer and you will be amazed at the difference. Like every product, there are the expensive high-end brand moisturizers, and there are the inexpensive drug store ones. My recommendation is to find a happy medium; you get the most bang for your buck if you can get the medium priced brands ranging anywhere from $20-$60. I’m sure there are a bunch of really good under $20 moisturizers, but there is no comparison to the results of the 3 I’m going to list below.
1: First Aid Beauty Ultra Repair Cream: Intense therapy moisture for your face containing colloidal oatmeal, shea butter, eucalyptus oil, & ceramides. It comes in a 6 oz (as shown) for $28, a larger 12 oz for $39, OR what I would personally do is try it out first with the cute 2 oz tube for only $12. All from Sephora.
2: Clinique Dramatically Different Moisturizing Gel: This gel texture provides a refreshing “moisture drink” for the skin without clogging it up. This is oil-free and perfect for those who like me, suffer from oily skin. You can try it out in the small 1.7 oz tube (pictured) for only $13. Love it? You can buy the biggest 6.7 oz bottle for $36. Available atSephora.
3: Benefit Total Moisture Facial Cream: My personal favorite, this facial cream provides immediate and long-term hydration for an ultra-radiant complexion. To contains an exclusive “tri-radiance complex” to help develop the skins water reserves and reinforce the moisture barrier. A bit pricey, it’s worth every penny. For the 1.7 oz (pictured) it is $38. Available at Sephora.
Commandment #4: Thou Shall Not Wear the Wrong Foundation Shade
This is one of the most abused cardinal rules of applying makeup. Foundation is NOT supposed to give you a tan — save that job for bronzers! It is supposed to create a perfectly smooth complexion that hides your imperfections. This is why you need a foundation that blends in with your skin.
Test a shade on your jawline, not on your hand (as shown in the picture). Try a bunch of different shades/brands and the one that disappears on your skin after a few seconds is your match.
Commandment #5: Thou Shall Not Try to “Sculpt” Thy Face
I can sum up this mistake in one sentence that you should always remember: There is only so much that makeup can do. What this means is yes, we would all love
to have amazing cheekbones. If you weren’t born with them and aren’t planning on getting an extremely invasive plastic surgery procedure, you will not have them.
It is probably better to leave this for a professional at contouring the face with makeup, however the only time this may be ok to do yourself is for photography/film.
Commandment #6: Thou Shall Not Wear Black Eyeliner in the Daytime
I know, this one is a harsh dose of reality. It is a fact that dark colors shrink and recede/make things look deeper. Does that sound like it would be flattering to your eyes in the bright of day?
Light colors accentuate and bring forward. If you want to look more awake during the day, skip the black liner and get a good mascara which should be enough for your bottom especially. If you absolutely need some liner on the bottom, try using a brown. It will be much softer in the daytime.
Commandment #7: Thou Shall Not Make Thy Lips Bigger with Liner
I personally do not hold any judgement over anyone who does this. It makes sense that if you want your lips to look a tiny bit (or a lot) bigger all you have to do is just trace your lip liner a little outside your natural lip line. Much easier said than done.
It is extremely noticeable (and unflattering) on 99.9% of the people that try this. It is beyond difficult to get it just right and the end result will not be attractive. Unless you want to look like Pamela Anderson in the early 90′s.
If you are insistent on trying to plump up your lips like this, at least make sure you use a liner that is the same shade as your lipstick. And when you fill in your lips with your lipstick, make sure you do not go over the liner line.
Commandment #8: Thou Shall Not Get Sentimental with Thy Mascara
I love my mascara and I’m sure you all love your mascaras. If you love something, let it go. After 4 (yes, four) months maximum, it is important that you throw out your mascara. Every single time you open that glorious tube of life, take out the magical wand, use it and put it back in, you are playing cupid for your good friend mascara and a little thing called bacteria.
We also may have a little ménage à trios situation going on. Air is also then introduced to our good friend mascara which causes it to dry out which then leads to the dreaded clumps when you apply it. All the while being full of bacteria. Ew, right?
A solid sign that it is time to say goodbye to your current mascara is when you notice that it is starting to go on clumpy. Don’t worry, there are plenty of other worthy wands to take its place.
Commandment #9: Thou Shall Not Get Carried Away with Luminizers
It happens to all of us: you try an amazing new product for the first time, you are astounded at the result and you become obsessed and vow to never go a day without it. I would say that this most commonly happens with luminizers.
Sure, a product that makes us appear effortlessly glowing, fresh and rested is impressive. Less is more. A tiny bit of these goes a long, long way. When you get carried away and use too much of them, you may actually will look like an alien with an oily face problem. Contrary to common misconception, luminizers are really only meant for two places; cheekbones and the inner corners of your eye. If you can contain yourself and not go crazy, you can use a tiny bit under the eye. I advise only the luminizer addicts with extreme self control try it there.
In the daytime if you use too much luminizer aside from looking extremely oily you will have every tiny imperfection “illuminated” for the world to see. That doesn’t sound too pretty to me.
Commandment #10: Thou Must Choose: Eyes or Lips
No matter how much you love both your eyes and your lips and have the most perfect eyeshadow idea and perfect lipstick for an outfit one night, you must make a choice every time you plan to glam it up with your makeup; Eyes or Lips.
Emphasizing both of your eyes and your lips will make you look way too done up and harsh-looking. You have to decide which one you would rather go for the more dramatic/intense/done up look and which one you will let fall to the sidelines in the attention game.
Picture an intense and perfectly done black smokey eye. Now picture that with bright red lips. I bet the image that comes to your mind is not something you would ever want to look like. If you want to have a dramatic smokey eye then you must give your lips a more neutral/pale color to avoid looking like a clown. A nice pale beige lip is the most complimentary accessory to the smokey eye.
If you want to go the other way and play your lips up with a bright fuchsia lipstick then simply just use some mascara and eyeliner on your eyes and let your lips take the spotlight for the evening. Whether you decide to emphasize your lips or your eyes, I promise you that no one will forget that you have either.
Do you follow all the Cosmetic Commandments above? Any rules you’d add or subtract to our list? Let us know!
guest
I think all these commandments are pretty straightforward and any cosmo girl should know them.
guest
No. I don’t follow them. Ok. The only one I break is the black eyeliner, and I don’t care what anyone says, I’ll wear black winged eyeliner until the day I die and in that case, the mortician better tattoo it on.
guest
I have naturally black eyelashes. i would look ridiculous with brown eyeliner. Trust me, I’ve tried. Black eyeliner is a must for me, even during the day. i love my wings^^
orchid / 217 posts
Black eyeliner is a must for me. Sometimes I’ll substitute in navy or smoke grey, but black eyeliner is a must. Brown looks weird on me.
guest
Love these! I follow these, some by default though (I don’t use luminizers).
guest
I wear black liner and use an eyebrow pencil and my brows don’t look unnatural. You just have to find a shade that matches your hair color appropriately and use it in small strokes like you’re drawing hairs, but I also blend with a q-tip and clean up any that’s gone outside of my actual eyebrow hairs. Use the pencil as a definer, not to draw on your actual eyebrows.
sunflower / 332 posts
I think we can make an exception with black eyeliner. I think it’s how you apply that determines how natural or unnatural your eyes may look. If you know how to apply properly in the day time, trust me you’ll look awake. Brown eyeliner’s good too, but for us dark skinned girls, it doesn’t really accentuate anything because it blends with our own skin tone.
But I do agree that when you do your make up you have to bring the focus to one facial feature and one alone, whether it be cheek bones, nose, eyes, eyelashes or lips, you have to know what you want to bring out more. Or else it’ll be just way too much…
guest
Black eyeliner is perfectly okay during the day – otherwise, right on with all of these.
guest
I use a pencil on my eyebrows. I think I do a pretty good job with it though because the first time my best friend saw me filling them in she was shocked.
guest
I’m with the above posters. Good ideas for the most part, but black liner can work whenever, as long as it’s not overdone.
guest
I don’t like the idea of commandments across the board. I know the title says “I live by”, but they’re all phrased as “you”, and that sounds like you’re telling people what to do. Almost none of these apply to everyone.
guest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfq000AF1i8
daisy / 658 posts
lol i use rimmel brow pencil and its actually very natural, i mean as long as is the right color and the formulas good and you’re not drawing on a chola arch it looks good.
guest
A lot of these rules are crap.
guest
Sounds like good advice to me (though I don’t wear makeup, so I have very little experience haha)!
guest
i love black eyeliner at any time.
magnolia / 1357 posts
I look weird without my winged black liner haha
Another rule? Never wear makeup that will make my face look one color in real life and another color in photos.
tulip / 5 posts
I agree with you guys- I totally think black liner can be worn during the day depending on the person & how you wear it. However, I did an experiment one day & instead of wearing my black liner I tried using a medium colored brown powder & applied it to my lower & upper lash line. It did absolute wonders; made my eyes look so much wider & more awake. I always hear & see that black liner during the day is one of the most shamed makeup mistakes & I was curious to hear what you guys thought. Consensus says that it is definitely acceptable, good to know & thanks for sharing!
ranunculus / 3457 posts
The fact that you’re recommending St. Ives Apricot scrub, which is HORRIBLE for your skin, tells me you don’t know what you’re talking about.
orchid / 231 posts
I pencil in my brows and I wear black eyeliner every day
I do have a dark brown gel liner I like a lot, but when I’m in a hurry, my black liquid liner is what I fall back onto. I also have black hair, so I don’t see what the problem is…
guest
@MoonFaeEyryan@xanga - Uh oh, I use it weekly. Is it that bad? D:
guest
I follow most of the beauty commandments when I wear makeup. I would expand #9 to include not overdoing any shimmer makeup in general. However, I would like to note that I use black eyeliner no matter the occasion. I have black hair and lashes, it would just look silly if I used brown liner with my black lashes–how you line your eyes matters more, though. For work, if I decide to wear makeup, the liner would be thin and natural. For going out, I might go thicker and more winged.
@MoonFaeEyryan@xanga - I agree…I wouldn’t put that on my face! Ouch.
tulip / 5 posts
@MoonFaeEyryan@xanga - If not an exfoliant, an award winning one at that, what would you suggest to wash your face with to take away the dry & dead skin? Do you have a good exfoliant to share? All the others I’ve tried haven’t compared to Apricot Scrub. There are also levels of the scrub you can get depending on your skin level.. aka one for sensitive skin, normal skin, rough, and so on.
guest
I prefer bronzed eyeliner over black eyeliner day or night. I’ll occasionally do black, but with fair skin and light eyelashes I think bronze is less harsh and more flattering. Wet-N-Wild Bronzed eyeliner, cheapest there is but works better than any other eyeliner I’ve used.
ranunculus / 3457 posts
@specialxplaces@xanga - It’s too harsh for your face, it’s only good for your body.
guest
The Apricot scrub dried out my face.. So did First Aid Beauty’s moisturizer, oddly enough. Clinique anything chemically burns me.
I’ve switched to Burt’s Bees Sensitive line for my face since my skin hates everything else. >__>
guest
THANK YOU for posting this! My only argument is the foundation thing. Am I supposed to buy fifty billion shades of foundation, test each one on my jaw, and then throw them all out until I find the right shade?! I’ll stick with concealer and an otherwise natural face. I loathe foundation!
But I love everything else about this post.
Even the eyeliner thing, which I know 80% of women will ignore.
guest
I don’t use eyeliner, lipstick, luminizer, or foundation. Eyeshadow and mascara all the way.
guest
@TakingxOverxMe@xanga - I, too, have very sensitive skin. Neutrogena and Clearasil are the worst. One product I have found to be quite gentle is Olay Total 7 Effects. I realize that a majority (if not all) of Olay’s products are focused on anti-aging, however, their gentle scrubs and facial lotion have proven to cause clear and soft skin. If you haven’t already tried it, I do suggest it. *Click*
guest
LOL I liked this post
alien with an oily face… made me laugh– but I must admit I do wear black eyeliner during the day, however, when I wear eyeliner (any color) I only put it on the top. I only wear liner on the bottom when I’m going out that night
cherry blossom / 47 posts
I agree with most of these but… some rules were meant to be broken