Bare Naked Ladies

Summer Make-Up Faves

I love summer. As a grown up I love the beach, bbqs and icy cocktails, but I am still connected to the summer of youth when days stretched out in an endless row leading to September, and the smell of Ban de Soleil and gas fumes meant vacation. In honor of the long days of summer I am going to share my favorite look - the naked face. What is more youthful, even for us midlife babes than dewy skin with bronzer and highlighter framed by beachy, messy hair.
Start with with a tinted moisturizer with SPF. I love Benefit's You Rebel, $30 at Sephora.com. It's creamy, smells good, gives that summertime glow and a little goes a long way. Then I use an angled blush brush to apply bronzer under the apple and the hollow of the cheeks - I have been using Cargo's Big Bronzer, available at Ulta, for years - there are a lot of good bronzers out there, but Cargo works with my skin tone so I've been pretty faithful to it. You can apply a blush to the apple of your cheeks and blend down into the bronzer - Nars' Orgasm is perfect for summer, and then with a tapered brush apply luminizer, I like Lorac's luminizing powder, to the prominent planes of your face like the nose, chin, forehead, under eye brows, and the cheek bones below the eye sockets. - don't over do it - think luminizing not sparkling. Line the eyes with a little something - I like a brown/black liner, curl lashes and apply mascara. Don't forget to groom and fill in the brows. For the finishing touch - a nude liptstick, I like Nars Belle De Jour, and top with a gloss either clear or pigmented- it's up to you, Nars' Orgasm gloss is a good choice, but sometimes I prefer to keep the mouth untinted- you can also just apply a light balm.
This is a good face for anytime of year, but especially good in summer when less is more, and memories of the long, hot summer come calling on the old land line.