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How did you learn to apply makeup?
How did you learn to apply makeup? Share!
I learned some pre-YouTube tutorial days mostly by just seeing someone else’s eye makeup applied and liking the shape or style, then mimicking it later on – then lots and lots of practice. Some of the people I liked looking at their looks for started YouTube channels, so I’d watch them here and there. I also had Kevyn Aucoin’s Making Faces books, which I had gone through before I even had makeup to apply, but I didn’t really visit it much once I had it (go figure!) for quite some time.
Thanks to Amy for today’s question! Do you have a question idea? Submit yours here.
Trial and error.
Same here.. Youtube has been my guru! Watching and trying sort of worked and I could find a way to do things myself!
Hello Christine,
I live in France and I like you !!
Anyway, To answer your question I’ve learned with youtube (of course it was the biggest source of expenses makeup ^^) and especially with a lot of practice and many failure but at least, now, i know for what I waited and wanted as makeup.
Kisses of France!
PS : Sorry my english is not very well
<3<3
youtube & back when people posted looks on the mac_cosmetics livejournal! and a few blogs too haha!
Good old experimentation, trial and error and winging it! Sometimes I would try to copy makeup from the models in magazines too. Then I found Temptalia and YouTube. I’ve learned so much from this blog and all the videos I’ve watched. I’m addicted!
Aw! <3 Thanks, J!
When I was 13 (way back in the stone age), there was a school called the Barbizon school of Modeling. I begged my mom to take classes there, and she let me! So every Saturday for about 6 weeks, I would take the train, by myself to Philadelphia and walk to the school (with my box of Barbizon approved products) where they would show me and a bunch of teenagers how to put on makeup.
I used to take a makeup lesson just to learn how to do my own makeup. However, I don’t really like the look my teacher taught me; I find it’s too heavy. Also, I am not improving a lot after the lesson as I am not allowed to put on too much makeup (bb cream, mascara, eyeliner, blush only). Now I am studying overseas and my parents are far away, I can sneakily buy makeup and learn how to put on makeup. Mostly I learn from youtube or pinterest.
Just tons of practice! Sometimes I’d try out looks I saw in magazines. Eventually I learned to apply colors with a lighter hand!
By sneaking into my parents’ bathroom and playing with my mom’s makeup, I started getting into it at around 3-4 years old!
Then by reading magazines and trying to copy any look I liked… Then I got some makeup books, and now I like to watch makeup tutorials on YouTube for fun.
For me, it was more about having the time to devote to makeup application. When I was younger, I would slap on just enough makeup to look polished and professional and I was also involved in athletics–running and riding–so wearing makeup in a non-work environment was not a priority. I didn’t connect with my inner artsyfartsy until I was in my 40’s and illness forced me to change my lifestyle quite significantly. Of course, modern technology has been a huge help as well with terrific resources such as this. I keep honing my skills and now I am most definitely the ‘guru’ within my group of women friends.
Oh you know, like the most of us, just trial and error throughout the years 🙂 In 2011 and 2012 I also took professional make-up classes though, before I became a make-up artist.
On my own first, and then at MAC.
I started learning as a little kid! My mom used to host Mary Kay parties and she’d humor me and let me sit in and apply makeup with the ladies.
Magazines (preyoutube), guesswork, and YouTube!
Trial and error. So much error. By the time I got around to youtube tutorials I already had a decent handle on how things work. Reading blogs and watching tutorials over the past two years has really upped my game though!
YouTube definitely helped in terms of where to start and brushes and products, but I have a long way to go in terms of perfecting my application. My trial and error and practice, I’m getting better at makeup.
From youtube, before that I didn’t knew what to do with eyeshadows or anything!
Later I bought a Bobbi Brown book and it’s really handy and love the everyday natural look.
No YouTube back in 1958 when I first started playing with makeup. Makeup tutorial? What was that? LOL I learned by copying the looks I saw in movie magazines and fashion magazines. Movie stars seldom appeared in public without being perfectly made up and coiffed and so they served as beauty and style icons. I’d cut out and save the pictures of looks that I particularly liked and paste them in a scrapbook for reference. Then, practice, practice, practice 🙂
YouTube and lots of practice
Trial and error. xP
YouTube & practice.
I’m the same way I learned through Youtube and by asking the makeup artist when I would buy makeup at a counter 🙂
I learned from ym and cosmo girl magazines. My mom didn’t really wear a ton of makeup and I had no older sisters or cousins or whatever. Everything I learned was from my friends and those mags!
I did stage makeup for my high school drama society. Learned a lot of tricks, some of which can be applied to everyday street makeup. Before that I don’t think I ever used anything but lipstick – but it was high school!
I learned to put on make up from my friends back in junior high and high school locker rooms and bathrooms! Luckily I had/have some friends who really knew how to apply their stuff!
Mostly trial and error and the makeovers that I had in my youth (Merel Norman or at a ‘spa’ ) were so not helpful.
I truly learned to apply and like makeup through youtube in my 40s. See, it never is too late to learn 🙂
Monica
We didn’t have tutorials in my day – and no one in the cosmetics departments to show us what to do. I learned by seeing pictures in magazines. Teen Magazine comes to mind – there were others. I found it pretty easy! Do what looks good : )
I was introduced to make up at a very young age (I did dance for several years) so the day I was able to get my hands on it, I was practicing and experimenting constantly. I didn’t know much about YouTube then but I would see looks in magazines and mimic those, as well as invent some of my own looks…some of which we’re terrifying, I’m sure. Now I just follow gals like yourself and get inspiration from y’all!
Lots of trial, LOTS of error and copying things out of magazines/tv!
Old Time Hollywood makeup artists Wally Westmore and Max Factor had instruction books well before Kevin Aucoin and Way Bandy and Bobbi Brown so “back in the day” we would all strive for that Hollywood glamour with the pages spread before us. Now I struggle to update my style via You Tube and Pinterest – old habits die hard!
I went to the School of Pokem and Smearem, Stabem and Spearem…or at least my mascara wands did!! Every so often they have a reunion…
Seriously though, it was trial and error for me. Mostly I would buy something I liked the look of on the shelf and hope it would look good on me. Almost everything was neutral and “safe”. In the past few years I’ve ventured out of my comfort zone of neutrals and MLBB shades thanks to blogs and YouTube.
I was a teenager in the late 80’s/early 90’s. When I first started using makeup at the start of high school in 1991, my mom purchased a few drugstore makeup products for me such as foundation, powder, blush, and eyeshadows from Cover Girl. At that time, Cover Girl used to sell their eyeshadow trios and quads in actual packaging that contained instructions on how and where to apply the eyeshadows on one’s lids. I used those instructions to first learn how to apply eyeshadow. I also had subscriptions to one or more teen fashion magazines. Therefore, I would also read articles and/or look at the various photos in these magazines, which also taught me how to apply makeup. Now as a 37 year old woman, I still feel that I’m learning how to apply makeup. Fortunately, YouTube makeup tutorials now exist to help me learn more advanced makeup application techniques and/or tips on how to use specific makeup products that I currently own.
I used to try and copy looks from magazines as I was growing up and also watching Madonna videos, I loved her look back in the day!
I always loved makeup! Even as a little girl
I was fascinated by color. I would always
Buy magazines to see the makeup section
and practice. I also bought Kevin Aucoyn
Makeup book..I still look at it. I would practice
On all my friends and family. Also i would go to
Chicago and buy all the latest trends in makeup
And let the makeup artist at Barney’s and
Neiman show me how to apply my makeup.
Trial and error!:) I think I learnt a lot of subtle hints and tips from Youtube but the base for everything – trial and error!
I literally learned everything from youtube all the way down to eyelash application. Now I use instagram and I’m pretty good soo basically can copy what I see. I learned a lot from your blog as well
I learned by looking at Vogue magazine and trying to copy some model’s look that I liked. Since there was no internet back then, you had magazines or movie stars to copy. Then, Way Bandy appeared and began to let people know the tricks. Ah, the old days! We had a lot of fun.
I started with watching my mom do her makeup, then lots and lots of trial and error. Lately, probably for the last two years, Youtube has been my go to for makeup tutorials. And then more practice.
I mimicked my mother as a child of 8th grade and I had subscriptions to Sassy, Jane, YM and Seventeen Magazines. I didn’t get as obsessed as I am until beauty school when we had our ONE unit on makeup and aesthetics. I knew right then that I did NOT want to do hair, and makeup/skin care was more my cup of tea. I dropped out and started doing makeup artistry on myself and friends until I got hired at a mock glamour shot photography center. In the ‘field’ I learned so much more!
Lots of trial, lots of error, and magazines. Allure’s been my bible from the first day it was published – before that it was Glamour.
First, playing with my mother’s makeup. Then I’ve learned from Youtube. But when I’ve became a makeup artist I think I really, really, learn how to apply my makeup.
I learned by reading all of the 1990s (1990-1999) seventeen magazines, marie claire, all those young women magazines that taught how do do makeup 🙂
The hard way. I was so thrilled the first time I bought an eyeshadow palette (in blue). I had no idea what to do with it, so I just swiped on a bold blue from my brow down. I went to high school like this, and the girlfriend I had shopped with came up and told me I had put it on way too heavily. I’m sure it looked hideous with my fair complexion. I was so embarrassed. This was long before Youtube tutorials. I finally learned my colors and what looked best on me but it’s been a long time coming!
I drew faces everyday and makeup came naturally to me.
More from magazines than other media; I especially love and continue to – Allure! You Tube and Instagram come in next. When an artist works on me, I rarely remember what they have done (techniques), as I typically just enjoy the moment and relax.
Youtube basically taught me.. but I also developed my own techniques!