Pre-Teen Makeup & Skin Care
Teen skin can get oily and prone to breakouts. Wash your face morning and night with a mild cleanser. Try an herbal or fruit face scrub or clay mask to open and cleanse the pores once a week. Complete your routine with an oil-free moisturizer. And in the morning, use sunscreen with an spf of 15 or more. To keep blemishes in check dab on a lotion or zit zapper stick with salicylic acid. Don't overly dry out oily skin with harsh astringents. And don't overtan or intentionally burn your skin to dry out blemishes. You're skin is delicate and how you take care of your skin now will show years from now.
How much makeup is right for now
Teens are exposed to TV, fashion magazines, rock stars and films. Everyone is wearing makeup and teens coming into their own will want to too. But how much is too much? You'll have to check with your parents and your school for any particular makeup rules. It's best when you're beginning to wear makeup to keep it subtle, but do experiment. Add a little glimmer and shine, and for evening some glitter. All the lines have them currently so explore the counters for what fits your coloring and price range.
- Concealer: For undereyes use a light weight wand, pencil or stick. You can correct undertones by using yellow or green corrector for red tones, and orange corrector for blue tones. Apply with your finger or an applicator brush. Covering blemishes calls for a dryer concealer like Laura Mercier Secret Camouflage at Neiman Marcus. A dryer concealer will cover longer and better. Go for skin tone on this one. And remember a shade on the yellow side corrects red. A trick is to use a lip brush or q'tip to apply, then dip the applicator in some powder and dab on over the concealer.
- Foundation and powder: If you need to wear foundation, choose a lightweight, non-oily liquid or gel stick that matches your skin tone. If you are very light, don't depend on a foundation to darken your skin. It will leave a demarcation line around your jaw. To give your face more color, add some bronzer in either stick, powder, gel or liquid to temples, cheeks, jaw, and a dab on the nose, where the sun would normally tan you. Do use a little under your chin and neck to even out the look. Use a loose, or pressed powder to match your skin tone or translucent that works with all skin tones. Keep a pressed powder or oil blotting papers with you during the day to stay fresh, give your makeup staying power, and keep oily skin in check.
- Blush comes in powder, gel, liquid or stick. Using your fingers or a brush apply to the apple of your cheek and blend with a sponge, cottonball or your fingers.
Eye Shadow: Here's where you can have some fun. Look at the iris' of your eyes. What colors are in them. I bet if you have brown eyes, there's some gold and rust there. Play up the subtle colors within your eye but don't compete with your eyecolor by adding turquoise blue to your gray blue eyes. Try gray or navy instead. Rule of thumb, stay with neutral beige, bisque, soft lavender, peach, and brown for daytime and add pizzazz for the evening or parties. Using your finger, a spongetip, or brush, stroke the shadow across the lid and blend up and out. Don't go too dark, you'll look like you've borrowed your mother's makeup. For summer, bright colors are in as well as bronze, gold and rust. Line the eyes with color and keep the lid and crease neutral.
Mascara and Brow should be in clear or brown. Try L'Oreal Voluminous mascara. Brush on and separate the lashes. Your brows should be full and rich right now. If you feel you need to tweeze and get permission, then use this system. Align a pencil from the corner of your nostril straight up to the inside corner of your eye. That's where your brow should begin. Now place the pencil from the corner of the nostril to the outside of the iris of the eye. That is the arch area and from the corner of the nostril to the outside of the eye is where your brow ends. The nose bridge and from the arch to the tail of the brow are usually where there are stray hairs. If your brows are unruly, then think about tweezing. But remember, sometimes it doesn't grow back, so be cautious and delicate and tweeze one at a time, pulling with the growth of the brow hair. Usually a slanted tweezer works best. Use a cottonball saturated with alcohol to sanitize the tweezer during usage.
Lip gloss and lipstick can be in coral, orange, bronze, peach, brown pink, beige, pink and berry. Reds and dark shades can be too much right now. You probably don't need to line your lips just yet, but you can use a liner close to your lip color to fill in the entire lip and then add gloss for more staying power.
What's on our model Katie Alveraz from direct casting Inc.
L'oreal Eye Highlighter Pencil in Citrine Flash $7.69 Benefit Gloss in Slow Dance $13.
Ulta Eye Shadow in 08-Sand $6.50 L'oreal Voluminous Mascara $6.69
Laura Mercier Secret Camouflage $26 Tony & Tina Cosmic Lights $12
Bonne Bell Smackers Sponge-on Sparkler $2.59
What's Out There:
Hard Candy, Jane, CoverGirl, L'Oreal, Fetish so winkable eyeshadow in Earth and Enchanted $3.49, and Let it slide lip gloss in Jammin $3.49 Wet&Wild Speed Zone Nail Color $1.79, Caboodles Eye Shadow in Wild Child $3.49 and Loose powder $4.99. Revlon Bamboo Blast for summer, Smackers and Gear by Bonnie Bell $2.59, Bobbi Brown Color Options, Clinique, Urban Decay, Tony&Tina, Sephora, Anna Sui, Benefit, Trucco, Ulta. There's plenty to choose from at $1.99 and up. You can collect lots of colors and textures, and don't forget some body glimmer and glitter.
Here's another trick for body sheen with sunscreen. Mix a sunscreen with at least SPF 15 with liquid bronzer or darker foundation and some loose glitter in gel, or powder form. Apply it like you would body lotion.