1950’s Makeup – How to get the look

If you have picked up the Oct/Nov issue of Your West Midlands Wedding Magazine you may have noticed that they had a new addition to their panal of beauty experts …. ME!

Your West Midlands Wedding Magazine Beauty Panal
Your West Midlands Wedding Magazine Beauty Panal

The question I was asked was how to create a glamourous 1950s makeup look at home, for a 1950’s inspired wedding.

Here’s the low down on ‘how to get the look’ …

  1. Chose a matt foundation a shade lighter than your natural skin tone and set with a powder.
  2. Blush was used very subtly to contour the face, choose either a peach or pink to compliment your skin tone. The aim was to achieve a peaches and cream complexion with a velvety smooth finish.
  3. Eye shadow was also very subtle. Chose a colour to match your eye colour or your outfit, pastels and browns were popular choices, but make sure it’s matt. Keep the shadow concentrated to just above the lashes and blend upwards and sidewards.
  4. Line the lash line with an eye pencil, keeping it very soft on the lower lashes. You can add an eye ‘accent’ by adding a small flick at the corner of each eye. However a more modern ‘50s inspired’ look can be achieved by using a black gel/liquid liner to create a more striking line and flick.
  5. Curl your lashes and then use mascara to enhance the upper outer corner lashes and you can also use fake half lashes to really emphasise this winged eye look.
  6. The eye brows of the 50s were shaped and penciled. Start by brushing your brows up into an arch, tweezing stray hairs if needed, then darken with a powder or pencil (a shade or two darker than your hair colour) and shape into an arch extending them at the outer corner if needed. Set in place with a brow gel.
  7. For the lips russian reds were still popular but pinks, purple-reds and orange-reds were also starting to appear by the early 50s. Chose a colour to match your outfit and then use a liner to define the shape of your lips, creating a soft rounded cupids bow and then fill in with your chosen lipstick colour, blot and add a touch of gloss if required.
  8. Add a touch of glamour to your look and draw on your own beauty mark or emphasis one you already have with a brown eye pencil.

All you need now are painted nails to match your chosen lipstick and a great pin-curl set coiffure and you’ll be the belle of the ball. Let me know how you all get on …



Faux Betty Bangs anyone?

Here’s just a quick little post to share two simple how-to guides that I found by Loreal for autumn/winter 2012 trends. Yet again vintage inspired hair-dos have been seen on the cat walk and Loreal have shown you how to recreate them …

The first up is what they are billing as ‘London Wave’ but it is basically a take on the wet-set glamour waves as seen in the 1940’s and 1950s. Go for the look on its own or combine it with some victory rolls or faux betty bangs.

The second video is for Loreal’s ‘Retro Revival’ hair do, which is a bit of a modern twist on your usual faux betty bangs. Usually faux bangs are created by rolling down onto the face to emulate an actual fringe but in this video they twist up and away from the face to create more of a quiff/roll.

You will notice in this video that they use padding to create the roll you can sometime pick these up in hair supply shops but is much easier to buy a donut shaped one (much more common) and cut it. Alternatively you get get a hair net and shove it full with your old hair from your hair brush but a) takes a while to get enough hair b)you can’t always get a smooth finish as creating a sausage shape with out any lumps and bumps with the padding is hard and c) is a little gross!

These are by no means the only way you can create each look but I thought they make great little tutorials and with a bit of practice they are easy enough for anyone to be able to recreate on themselves. You can even mix and match the two looks and instead of putting your hair up at the back you could create some waves (although you may want to section off slightly less hair for the faux bangs to leave more hair for the curls if you are doing this look).

Enjoy! Let me know how you all get on …