The Flawless Face.

I've been getting a lot of compliments on my skin lately and as much as I try to tell people I don't have perfect skin by any stretch of the imagination, no one believes me...fine by me, I guess! ;) Apparently my current foundation routine has been doing good things for me lately, so I figured I'd share it with you. Just a word of caution though: Your skin may look so flawless afterwards that I suggest you start practicing phrases like, "No, I swear, I really do not have perfect skin!" and "I promise you, I suffer from breakouts too!" now :D

This will be the finished result and I'll be honest, I'm just putting it first because I know it's going to show up as the thumbnail on the Blogger Dashboard and I don't want a photo of my makeup-less face to scare readers off from clicking on the post ;) Yay, you've made it this far!

Step 1: Apply moisturizer. I used The Body Shop Seaweed Mattifying Day Cream. (I told you I don't have perfect skin!) ;)

Step 2: Spray MAC Fix+ all over in preparation for foundation. (This isn't always a necessity, depending on what moisturizer and foundation you're using, but both my moisturizer and foundation are on the drier side and the foundation won't apply as smoothly without dampening the skin with a facial spray first.)

Step 3: Apply foundation. I'm using Rimmel Lasting Finish 25 Hour Foundation. It's a medium to full coverage foundation, and on most of the posts where I get a lot of compliments on my "perfect skin", this is the foundation I'm wearing. I apply it with my fingers.

Step 4: Conceal, conceal, conceal! *** This is my trick to flawless skin. I've never used a foundation that has been able to cover up all of my flaws, blemishes, and hyper-pigmentation before, so I rely on concealer to pick up where my foundation left off. I've been LOVING the Sonia Kashuk Hidden Agenda Concealer Palette lately for blemishes, scarring, and redness, and I used Dior Sculpt Lifting Smoothing Concealer for my under-eye circles.

Step 5: Powder to lock everything in. I used Maybelline Dream Matte Powder for my face and the powder in the SK Hidden Agenda Concealer Palette to set my under-eye concealer.

Skin is done!

Your skin should look pretty flawless at this point, but now the problem we've created is that your face may look a bit dimensionless since we've created such a blank and perfect (I use the word 'perfect' very loosely, obviously!) canvas. Now we'll go back in and add a bit of color and dimension to the face with the use of contour, blush, and highlight :)

Step 6: Use a brush handle to locate the hollows of your cheeks, aka the area right under your cheek bone. This is where you'll be applying your contour. Imagine if you had ridiculously high, model-esque cheekbones (if you really do have them, then I'm jealous!) - a natural shadow would be created directly below them, and this is what you're trying to mimic with contouring.

Step 7: Apply a matte, cool-toned bronzer or contour color to the area under your cheek bones. I applied Benefit Hoola with the Sigma F35 Tapered Highlighter brush. (Advice: Pay close attention to pick off any stray brush hairs on your forehead before snapping 3 photos you're planning on posting on your blog! Ugh - story of my life.)

Step 8: Locate the apples of your cheeks by smiling. Move about a half inch away from the apples (out towards your ears, not in towards your nose) and apply blush, applying it slightly outward and upward, but not all the way to your hairline! I used Milani Luminoso Blush.

Step 9: Apply highlighter to the tops of your cheek bones. Again, imagining those model-esque cheekbones - when the light hits them, it's going to be the most illuminated at the highest points of your face, one being the tops of your cheek bones, and a shadow is created below them (contour). I used Dior Amber Diamond with a MAC 188 brush.

Contour, blush, and highlight are done, and dimension has been added to your blank canvas.

Eyebrows ✔

Mascara ✔

Lipstick ✔ ...

The finished result!

How do you achieve your flawless face? I'd love to hear your tips if you'd like to share :)