• Some makeup artists declare that you shouldn’t be afraid to touch your makeup. The truth is you should be very careful about touching it. After you’ve taken the time to apply your foundation smoothly with a sponge and your eyeshadows evenly with brushes, there’s no reason to use your fingers unless it’s absolutely necessary, and only lightly at that.
• Don’t spray water or toner on makeup to set it or freshen things up. It doesn’t work. A mist of water can streak foundation, powder, and mascara. How this makeup myth got circulated is anyone’s guess!
• Don’t change every part of your makeup with every season. If you want to go softer during the spring and summer, that’s fine, but it isn’t an absolute must. Makeup should reflect how you want to be seen by the world and what makes you feel good—and that’s not dictated by the seasons.
• Don’t use makeup to correct the shape of anything on your face, especially the lips. Close up and in person you can absolutely tell when lipstick has been applied beyond or inside the natural lip line.
• Don’t use foundation or color correctors to change the color of your skin. Foundation must match the underlying skin tone exactly. That will soften any skin discoloration or redness. If you have yellow or olive skin there’s nothing you can or should do to change it. It’s best to accept it and work with it for your own look. Even if you succeeded in changing the color of your face, it would look strange next to your neck and along the hairline.
• To keep pencil eyeliner in place, many makeup artists recommend going over it with a matching powder eyeshadow. That works, but why do two steps when only one is needed? Forget the pencil and just use dark eyeshadow to begin with.
• Glowing skin does look nice, but mostly just in pictures. In real life, the same skin looks like it is covered with glitter. That isn’t bad, but it isn’t as appealing as the pictures make it seem, and any wrinkles will be illuminated, too. It is an option for an evening out, but that’s about it.
• No single set of colors is absolutely right for any skin color. The days of being typed into one color grouping are long gone. Just because you have red hair doesn’t mean you have to wear corals and avoid blue-red lipstick. It’s all up for experimentation and finding what looks best. Quite honestly, most women can wear just about any color they want to, as long as they pay attention to color intensity and application and adjust the details accordingly.