Make Your Makeup Last All Day Long

What do heat, cold, humidity, the wind, physical activity, and oil production have in common?  They can all wear and tear on our makeup, leading to creasing, caking, and fading.  Yuck!  Luckily, there are a few steps you can take to preserve your morning face throughout the day.  Check it out:

Seal:  Sometimes, when I opt for a softer look or a liner that I can blend with my eyeshadow, I use a pencil liner or dark eyeshadow as a liner.  These techniques help me achieve a nice look, but by the end of the day, there's barely any liner left on my eyes.  The best way to give it the staying power of a liquid liner is by sealing any pencil or powder liner with a shadow-to-liner potion.  Companies like Makeup Forever and Bare Escentuals make this product, which comes in a squeeze bottle and instantly turns your powder eyeshadow into a liquid liner.  How does it work?  You simply squeeze a drop of the solution into your eyeshadow, rub the area with your eyeliner brush, and then apply it to your eyes.  Personally, I've found that using these products in this way isn't very effective.  The solution ends up diluting the color and making the liner watery and difficult to apply.  Furthermore, these products damage your eyeshadow so that you can't ever use it as an eyeshadow again.  Instead, I like to apply my eyeshadow or pencil liner and then apply the solution over it as a seal, which is why I love the Too Faced Liquif-Eye Eyeliner ($16.20 on www.toofaced.com).  Rather than a squeeze bottle, it comes in a tube with a wand so that you can use it brush the solution over your liner.  You can also use the Too Faced seal over smudge-prone pencil liners.

Primers:  Before you apply your eyeshadow, smooth some eyeshadow primer over your lid.  Primer acts as a sticky surface for your makeup to hold onto.  You'll find that you won't have to touch up your eye makeup as often and less eyeshadow particles will fall onto your face or into your eyes during applications.  Some formulas can be a little watery, so I use the Smashbox Photo Finish Lid Primer ($20 at Sephora).  It has a great, creamy formula and comes with a wand for easy application.  And the formula is paraben and phthalate-free!  The same goes for the rest of your face.  Before you apply your foundation, add some face primer.  Similar to eyeshadow primer, face primer will help your foundation or powder cling to your skin and hold it on for longer.  Face primers leave your skin with a velvety finish, which makes it easier to smooth makeup over your face  (less pulling on your skin = fewer signs of aging).  Even if you don't wear complexion correcting makeup, you can wear a primer over your moisturizer.  Many primers create a skin protecting barrier and help even out your skin tone.  My favorite primer is the silky, oil-free Alison Raffaele Face Forward Primer with SPF 15 ($44 on www.alisonraffaele.com). It works well by prepping my skin for makeup and keeping it looking fresh all day long.  Another plus is that it offers some great skin benefits with mineral SPF, the poweful frutta di vita antioxidant protection complex, and anti-aging peptides.  Like all Alison Raffaele products, the primer formula is natural and toxin-free.

Setting Powder:  "Setting your face" is like sealing your face.  Foundations and concealers are sticky so that they stick to your face (obviously).  It makes sense...but that means that it can also stick to your face and clothes throughout the day.  Setting powders are usually

loose, colorless powders that give your foundation and concealer something to hold it onto so that it does not decide to grab onto your hands or clothes throughout the day.  Another function of setting powder is to absorb oil, which can cause makeup to crease or cake.  Since setting powders are clear, you can apply it over blush, highlighter, and bronzer and reapply it over your makeup during the day to get rid of excess oil that has developed.  Remember to apply some around your eye area to keep your under-eye concealer and eyeshadow from traveling.  You can use colored powders to set your skin, but they are often not as effective.  Any powders with pigment will have larger particles and a creamier feel.  This means that they will help hold your makeup throughout the day, but they are also more likely to cake and less able to absorb oil than an actual setting powder.  Look for talc-free formulas like the Alison Raffaele Transparent Finish Powder ($28 on www.beauty.com). 

Setting Spray:  Complete your look with a setting spray.  The two main ones on the market are made by Urban Decay and Makeup Forever.  Be careful!  The Make Up For Ever one contains parabens, so I prefer the Urban Decay All-Nighter Long-Lasting Makeup Setting Spray ($29 at Sephora), which also comes in different varieties for various skin concerns.  It also sprays nicer than the Makeup Forever one does.  Different sprays work to protect your makeup differently.  The Urban Decay one lowers the temperature of your makeup to shield it from environmental stressors like heat or cold to prevent your makeup from caking or fading. 

In addition to these products, make sure that you hydrate hydrate hydrate!  Your skin will lose moisture during the day.  Makeup relies on moisture from your skin to stay on.  Many foundations actually work by pulling moisture from your skin and begin to cake can when your skin starts running low on water.  Start off each morning by moisturizing your face - a moisturized face will also help your makeup stick when you apply it.  To replenish your moisture reserve during the day, spritz your face with some Evian Mineral Water Spray ($12 at Sephora) every few hours.  It's especially refreshing in the summer, and you can even spray it over makeup.