Video: How to Use the Color Theory in Makeup Application

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About the Expert

Simone McAlonen

http://lacasting.com/simone

Simone McAlonen is an actress/model/fitness/beauty expert from Los Angeles, California. McAlonen has been featured in the national commercial for Paul Mitchell/Patron and the "Hot" music video for Colbie Caillat, “The Scarred Oak Tree” in Hollywood and worked with Jason Mraz and many other artists. She is Lancome certified and has worked with make up professionally for more than years. To view her casting information visit the link provided: http://lacasting.com/simone

Transcript

Hi, I'm Simone. I'm a makeup artist, and today we're going to talk about basic color theory. So, the first thing you need to figure out is if you're a cool or a warm, and the easiest way to solve that question is look at the veins in your hands. If your veins kind of go more towards the green side of the spectrum, then you're a warm. If the veins in your hands go towards more of a blue color, then you're a cool. So, this is really important to keep in mind while you're picking out makeup colors for yourself, and even while you're picking out clothes for yourself. You want to pick colors that will complement your natural skin tone. So, examples of eye shadows that are cool will be like blues, violets, blue reds. Examples of eye shadows that are warm will be yellows, orangey reds, greens. So, that's really important to keep in mind. Another factor to keep in mind while you're doing basic color theory is the shade of your skin. So if you're really fair like me, you can wear really light colors for a really natural everyday look and if you want to take the color a little bit more dramatic then you can mix different darker colors together, and remember the more dramatic you want your look to be, the bigger discrepancy in shades of colors you should use. So, you should use one really dark color and one really light color. If you're a medium skin tone, you can wear kind of like a medium tone for a more natural look or you can wear a much darker skin tone for a more dramatic look. If you have a darker skin tone, you can wear kind of darker makeup for a more natural look, and then if you wear a color that's lighter than your skin tone it's going to look really vibrant and just really pop and be really fun. So, it's pretty easy. You're just going to really think about okay, what is my skin tone, and then matching my skin tone is going to be a really natural, easy, you know, everyday sort of look, but going to the opposite of my skin tone is going to be a more dramatic look. So, that's the basic color theory, just to get you started. Go out, experiment with what colors look best on you and then build your eye makeup palette based off of that. Thanks.