I went to a makeup class organised by Clinique earlier on. For the price of S$30.00, I got a hands-on demonstration on skin care and natural look makeup at a posh studio, complete with snacks and drinks, with a free tote bag and a matching pouch.
I have attended other makeup courses before, but this is different in that the procedure for skincare seems more complicated, whereas the procedure for makeup seems easier. Other courses will only go through the normal skincare routine of cleansing, toning and moisturising, then go straight into the application of foundation, powder, blusher, eyeshadows, eyeliners, eyebrow pencils, lipstick and lipglosses, spending more time on the makeup demonstration.
For this workshop, more time is spent on the skincare demonstration. According to Clinique, they have different makeup removers - one for eyes and lips, the other for the whole face. Which means we need to use two different kinds of makeup removers, before the actual cleansing begins.
After the cleansing, we use the Clarifying lotion as an exfoliator, by using a small round exfoliating brush to massage all over your face. I was told it is good to exfoliate the face everyday instead of just once a week or once a month.
After the exfoliation process, there is another lotion for toning, and then a moisturiser, followed by a sun cream. The eye cream is last. In applying the eye cream, one need to use the ring finger to tap the eye cream on the lower lid, then tap onto the upper lid, then massage the whole eye in circular motions, using both the ring finger and middle finger. Massage until the cream is totally absorbed into the surfaces around the eyes.
The way to remove makeup and cleanse is to dab the cream on the cheeks, nose, forehead and chin areas, starting from the cheeks, massage in an upward motion towards the nose bridge, the nose, the forehead, then to the upper lip area and the chin. Repeat the massage two more times. This is the same process as the makeup remover, cleanser and clarifying lotion and exfoliating brush.
Hence in other words, if one is to follow Clinique's beauty regime faithfully, they would probably need to spend an hour or so just on face care alone!
After the cleansing routine, we went on to the makeup demonstration. First off is a concealer. We were told to use two kinds of concealers - a brighter colour and a nude colour. The brighter colour is to hide all the eye bags and the nude colour has to be the exact shade of our skin so as to offset the dark circles.
How we apply concealer is to stroke three strokes on the under part of the eye lid, then use a concealer brush to blend all the strokes together, before going around the eyes and towards the upper eyes. It is not as simple as it looks as I found the more I blend the concealer, the more the colour went onto the rest of my face. :-(
Next step is foundation. Clinique did not use a liquid foundation; rather it goes straight to using a powder foundation. The trick of using fonudation is that the colour must fade exactly into your skin, which means we must get the shade as close to the skin colour as possible, to avoid any visible demarcations or make it seem as if one is wearing a mask. The powder provided is smooth and natural that I look as if I was not wearing any powder even after application!
Next comes the eyebrow. Since my brows are arched, we use a brow brush to apply the colour. The trick is to apply from the arch, as in from where the arch is, apply towards the ends of the brow, blending into the end. After that start from the middle, then sweep across to the front of the brows.
The eyebrow colour application is a technique that many people, myself included, have never been able to perfect. No matter what I do, my brows still look thick. How I wish I can have perfectly arched brows for once!
Eyeshadows go next. Since this is a more natural look makeup, the eyeshadow colours used are more understated. Because I am not that fair a person (in complexion), the colours I was given were more towards the earth tones of beige and coffee.
We were told to use a highlighter brush (the bigger brush) to sweep the lighter colour all over the eyelid, until below the brow bone. After that, we use the contour brush (smaller brush) to apply the colour until just above the line of the lid. Which means if one has prominent double eye lids like me, the colour should go just slightly above the line of the double eye lids.
Some other cosmetic companies will say it is best to apply the contour eyeshadow first, then the highlighter because that can blend in better. Different strokes for different folks I guess. To me, as long as the colours work well and blend well, it does not matter which one to apply first.
As a deviation from other cosmetics companies where the lips always go last, Clinique does the lips first after the eyeshadows and before the blusher and mascara. Because the look is supposed to be a natural look, instead of using lip liner and full colour, we were given a coloured gloss and a coloured balm.
Using a lip brush, we applied the coloured gloss all over our lips, then the coloured balm only on the centre of the lips instead of the whole lips. Each person got a different colour according to their skin colour. I was given a shade of honey (more muted brown pink) for the gloss, and a nude pink for the balm. Those with fairer complexions were given brighter colours like coral and sweet pink.
Next up was the blusher. We were given two shades of blusher, a brighter one and a more nude shade. The nude shade was to apply to the whole cheek, ie from the apples to the tip of the hairline at the side. We had to smile to know where to apply. Apply the blusher at the plumpest part of the cheeks.
After that, use the brighter shade on just the apples of the cheeks alone, then blend the two colours together to create a light natural flush. I must say the effect of the blusher is really good, although I think I did not do a thorough job blending.
Finally came the eyeliner and mascara. We were using liquid eyeliner, so we had to draw the liner as close to the edge of the upper lid, sweeping from the edge of the eye to the inner corner. We were asked to start from the middle of the eyelid, sweep towards the outer edge with a little uplift at the end, then sweep towards the inner lid. For this look, there was no need to draw the lower lid.
For the mascara, we were told to look down, then sweep the mascara from the bottom part of the upper lashes up two times, then use the top of the mascara wand to stroke the lower lashes. The effect was pretty good, although I was puzzled they did not use eyelash curler. I was told because Clinique does not stock eyelash curlers, hence they did not use it for the demonstration.
Finally the look is complete. When I took at look at myself in the mirror, I could not see much difference in me. Maybe that is the effect - a no makeup look. Hmmm.... or maybe I am used to seeing some actual colour after applying makeup, and not so understated.
At the end of the course, we could go buy some products from the booth. Since we had a S$30.00 voucher each, it could be used to offset any products. However, the promotion was on the face powder, if we get the face powder, we could also get a travel size lip gloss, lip stick and mascara for free. No colour choices though.
I decided to buy the face powder as I really like the natural effect it had on my face. It was just as if I was not wearing anything on my face. The powder comes in a classic metallic box that also acts as a mirror on top. The case itself costs S$20.00 and the powder (refillable) costs S$52.00, making the total S$72.00. After offsetting the S$30.00, I still had to pay S$42.00. Most expensive face powder I ever bought!
The face powder case (it is supposed to be a metallic mirror case, not sure why the photo makes it seem white on top)
The face powder
The free gifts of mascara, lipstick and lipgloss
And this is me, with all the makeup after the class. Seems like I did not do a good job with the concealer, eyebrows and blusher.
Overall it was a useful course, at least to pick up tips which I have not known, and to refresh tips which I have already known. I guess the trick is to just keep practising until I get it to look almost perfect, if not perfect.
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