Do you remember the days when putting on making didn’t involve baking your face, contouring, strobing, and making sure your eyebrows are on fleek? If your makeup days started and ended with LipSmackers (R.I.P.), all of this can be totally confusing. However, if you’re thinking of getting into makeup now but don’t want to weed through a bajillion YouTube tutorials nor dig through a bunch of Buzzfeed listicles because you’ll end up down a rabbit hole of quizzes, I have assembled my personal list of makeup products that are all good basics and will make the biggest impact from a sans made-up face. 103
1. A highlighter that will make your inner beauty shine out of your face like sunbeams.
Roald Dahl once said something along the lines of, if you have good highlighters, “they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely”. Well, it was either that or something about having good thoughts. Either way, highlighters are awesome because they make you glow like an ethereal being that had more than 8 hours of sleep. A good highlighter can make your skin look great without having to go through the more complex routine of putting on concealer or foundation (which is quite difficult to do right if you’re new to makeup).
Highlighters come in liquid, cream, or powder forms so test out the best consistency as well as colour for your skin-type before you commit. Be wary of highlighters with large sparkles, else you’ll look more like a disco ball (unless that is your prerogative). MAC and Sephora carry many great products but my all-time fave is BECCA’s Shimmering Skin Perfector. It leaves such a beautiful, natural finish on your skin and there are also powdered alternatives.
Your highlighter should go where the light naturally hits yours face (the high points): the top of your cheekbones, nose bridge, Cupid’s bow, and above the arch of your brows on your forehead. Congratulations, you just learned how to strobe your face.
2. A really, really good high-quality eyelash curler and whatever mascara works.
I know I’m cheating by jamming both eyelash curler and mascara into one section but hear me out: both of them help emphasize your eyes but one is more effective than the other depending on your eyelash characteristics. If you have lighter-coloured lashes, mascara will do wonders. However, if you have thick, dark eyelashes that grow straight down, mascara isn’t going to make much of a difference due to gravity; you’ll need eyelash curler help. If you have thick eyelashes that naturally curl up WHY ARE YOU READING THIS JUST SKIP TO THE NEXT SECTION.
Invest in a good quality eyelash curler because cheaper ones can pinch your eyelids, chop off or yank out your lashes, or give them a weird kink that makes you look like you slept face-first into a pillow with your eyes opened. With that being said, it’s actually quite easy to curl your eyelashes with the right curler. Shu Uemura’s Eyelash Curler is the best in the business and has been praised for giving a natural curl while also being easy-to-use. More expensive eyelash curlers have the same results, so you might as well save that OSAP money.
Mascara is basically a free-for-all; I find that everyone has a different mascara that works best for them based on the right combo of brush shape and material and formula. For example, a lot of people swear by Benefit Cosmetics’ They’re Real! Lengthening & Volumizing Mascara but I get better results with L’Oréal Paris’s Voluminous Million Lashes. The point is, you should experiment with different mascaras brands (drug-store or more upscale ones) to find out what works best for you.
3. Any product that makes your eyebrow game strong.
Having well-defined eyebrows can be a game-changer. On the flipside, if you mess up your brows, you can mess up your face. Do yourself right and get a good eyebrow product: something that allows for precise application for a realistic look, isn’t too waxy, and matches closely to your natural eyebrow shade.
There’s a whole bunch of eyebrow products (gel, pomade, pencil, powder, and wax) but if you’re a beginner, I recommend that you start with a brow pencil since you don’t have to work with other tools and it allows for more control (move in light upward strokes that mimic your hairs). Anastasia Beverley Hills is the queen of eyebrows, and her Brow Wiz pencils also come with a spoolie for you to blend the product in to create a natural finish.
4. A versatile Eyeshadow palette.
This is more cheating since eyeshadow palettes are really a bunch of products combined into one but this also means they can help you build many different looks. They also have other functions; if you wet an angle-liner brush BAM your eyeshadow can be used as an eyeliner, if you apply the lightest colour on the inner corner of your eyes, BAM 8 hours of sleep.
Urban Decay’s Naked palettes have a great range of universally-flattering, highly-pigmented colours, and comes with a 2-in-1 high-quality brush. It’s also a popular product so you can find a bunch of tutorial on how to create different looks with it. Drugstore brands have really upped their eyeshadow game recently; Maybelline New York’s The Nudes Eyeshadow Palette is constantly sold-out but you can buy it online. I also love Wet N’ Wild and Milani for their smaller eyeshadow combos.
5. My lips, but better.
They’re called MLBBs because they make your lips look like your natural lips…but better. Although I am a huge fan of brightly-coloured lipsticks, they’re not always wearable every day.
Finding the perfect MLBB is a lot of trial-and-error since the perfect MLBB depends on your unique colouring. Pay attention to all the lipsticks with brown undertones and darker mauves. Sheerer lip products are easier to use since it allows a bit of your natural lip colour to come through. If you prefer strongly-pigmented lipsticks, you’ll have to make sure it matches closely to your lip colour.
Note:
So now, you have at least 5 great makeup products to start your collection! This list contains general product-types that I think would work for everyone but depending on what look you’re going for, you might want to go further. My personal must-haves would have also included blush but I noticed this wouldn’t make as big of a difference on a lot of people as it does on me. Likewise, concealer might be super important to others but a lot of people have really great skin (we all tend to underestimate how great our skin really is). As you experiment with makeup you may find that there are other must-haves specific to you. After you cover all the basics, it doesn’t hurt to try out fun products, after all, there’s so much makeup out there to play with.
P.S. Even though thinking good thoughts got replaced by highlighters on this list you should still think good thoughts because it actually does make a difference on your face (and in the world).