#bridal makeup

A Lithuanian Bride

Flawless photography and wedding dress

Wedding photography by Ana Rosso Photography

Wedding dress by Innamorata Bridal

Wonderful exquisite wedding gown by Lazaro Bridal

Wonderful exquisite wedding gown by Lazaro Bridal

Stunning wedding gown by Sadek Majed

Wonderful Design

I’ve always been a massive fan of Charlotte Tilbury’s work, even before the brand. As a fellow working professional I’ve admired her skills for most of my 15-year career and once the brand materialised I was hooked!
The packaging exudes ‘Luxury’ and encompasses Charlotte in every way, you can see she has put every ounce of her knowledge and experience into producing the very best of the best!

When it comes to application, makeup is only as good as the skin it sits upon and Charlotte knows this all too well so naturally, she has produced one of the most incredible and dreamy moisturisers, focusing on active ingredients to plump & hydrate the skin ready for makeup application!
HerMagic Cream is a staple in many professional kits worldwide and also adored by avid lovers of the brand. 

This award-winning luxury moisturiser contains a combination of 8 oils and actives:

• Hyaluronic Acid for intense hydration, drawing in moisture from the air and locking it in place.
• Vitamin C helps brighten and even the complexion, Vitamin E transforms dull and lacklustre skin.
• BioNymph Peptide Complex helps stimulate collagen, fight free radicals and reduce the appearance of wrinkles. 
• Rosehip Oil, Camellia Oil, Aloe Vera, Frangipani Extract and Shea Butter have also added for moisture, glow, plumping and nourishment.

I use this luxurious moisturiser on ALL of my clients prior to any other makeup prep/products. Using my fingers, I work this over the entire face and allow it to sink in for a short while before makeup application. You can see how it really does plump the skin; pores are less defined, dry skin is softened and there’s a beautiful glow to the face, all of which makes for a great base!

Magic Cream is available in 3 sizes and comes with a bit of price tag;
30ml £49/$64 (ideal for travel) 
50ml £70/$100
150ml £180/$255

Applying a liquid highlighter underneath foundation is the best way to achieve that glow-from-withinappearance to your skin. Charlotte recently launched her Hollywood Flawless Filter which does exactly that! It is a complexion booster, designed to give you a mega-watt glow whilst priming your skin ready for foundation/concealer. This liquid highlighter can be worn alone, underneath your foundation or mixed with your foundation for added dewiness. It contains a blend of ingredients to help achieve a soft-focus feel, creating smoother looking luminous skin that diminishes that appearance of fine lines and pores. 

There are 7 shades available in the Hollywood Flawless Filter, ranging from Fair to Dark. The majority of the shades have a neutral undertone with a hint of either Peach, Beige, Golden or Warm. There is something for everyone!

I have two shades which I’ve swatched above for you; 

• 1 Fair - Neutral beige complexion booster for very fair skin
  
• 4 Medium - Neutral golden yellow complexion booster for medium skin tones
  

One of the key ingredients within this formula is a Glossy Oil; a lightweight moisturising oil that reflects and adds light to your face where you need it.
It looks particularly great under studio lighting when used for editorial purposes, personally, I’m less of a fan of it for everyday use on my own skin because I’m oily. If, however, you have drier skin and the texture is very smooth you can achieve the most beautiful finish! This product used over a bare, well-moisturised face can give you that sought after glass-like skin!
If you do suffer from excessive oil, use this only on the high points of the face.
Going back to ‘texture’, if you have raised bumps or an uneven complexion, applying any product that has light reflecting particles willenhance that texture. So bear that in mind before going all-in. 

Hollywood Flawless Filter 30ml  - £30/$45

After applying your Magic Cream AND your Hollywood Flawless Filter you should be looking pretty radiant! BUT… sometimes you can find after applying your foundation you look a little flat. Now, I’m referring to the contours of your face rather than the glow, or lack of. Foundation and concealer tend to knock back the shadows as they even out your complexion, which is great when it comes to dark circles but not when it comes to your cheekbones! So we need to redefine these areas by adding back some colour, only this time where we want it.
You can use cool toned products to contour as these mimic shadows, however, we’re slowly but surely coming away from the heavy contouring we’ve known for the past 5 years and are embracing a fresh new approach! Cream sticks are a fantastic way to add a wash of colour to the skin without mattifying it or making it look heavy.
Charlotte Tilbury has created 4 colour-saturated pigments for an irresistible summer glow, known as Beach Sticks, aka blush sticks.
They are super easy to use as they come in a stick-form which can be applied directly from the bullet and simply blended in with your fingertips!

I have three of the four shades available:

• Moon Beach- a luminous, rose-gold iridescent peach shade, the ideal colour to give your skin that radiant ‘golden-goddess’ glow!
  
• Formentera - a sun-kissed berry colour, perfect for creating a healthy, glowing complexion that looks like you’ve spent the week on a beach. 
  
• Ibiza - a burnished bronze shade, a great way to create dimension to the face by warming up the skin and sculpting the cheekbones.

Ceramidone is a key ingredient within the Beach Sticks which acts like a poly-filler to plump up & refill the skin. What makes this consistency unique are the high melting point waxes that hydrate the skin creating a dewy & supple finish, while light-diffusing spheres soft-focus imperfections & bring radiance to your face. This paired with the glowing, colour-saturated pigments makes for a beautiful all-in-one face stick!

Each Beach Stick is filled with 6.5g of product at a retail value of £30/$45each.

An exciting launch from Charlotte Tilbury is the return of her best-selling Pillow Talk eyeshadow palette, an extension to her ever-growing Luxury Palettes and an accompaniment to her existing (and very popular) Pillow Talk look! 

This is your ‘everyday’ eyeshadow palette that will enable you to create subtle but stunning, romantic and feminine eye looks. 
The quad consists of 4 shades; 2 matte finishes and 2 satin shimmers. 

• Champagne Pink
  
• Matte Dusky Rose
  
• Soft Matte Brown
  
• Rose Gold Sparkle
  

These are universally-flattering shades designed to enhance all eye colours! The warmer tones will really bring out Blues & Greens, and will really complement Browns and Hazels. 

This is a great colour palette for everyone but particularly ideal if you’re not super confident with pairing eyeshadows. It’s colour coded so that you can pair any of these 4 shades together and it’ll work as they’re subtle in tone. You can opt for a barely-there look, or, you can create a warm brown smoke layered with shimmer on the centre of the lid or inner corner of the eye for that something extra special. This would be a beautiful bridal palette, especially if you pulled the entire look together with the Pillow Talk blusher,lip liner&lipstick! 

This eyeshadow palette retails at £39/$53, and the Pillow Talk Look which includes the entire 4 piece range is £107/$145.

Shonagh x

By Sarah Graalman

Congratulations! You’re getting married, and are currently pondering the idea of getting your makeup done professionally. The event is going to be photographed, recorded, framed, and duplicated online. In short, it will be around forever, and you want to look as good as Cinderella the night she lost that slipper, but it turns out fairy godmothers don’t exist.  

Perhaps you’re thinking your cousin Sheila can do it because she always looks good. Professional advice: Don’t use cousin Sheila unless she’s an actual makeup artist– many people can be the master of their own faces, but are clueless when it comes to any other face. Even some professional artists will ask their make-up artist friends to do their makeup at their wedding, because even the best artists are scattered day of, and want to be taken care of. Treat yourself, and trust in a professional. Exactly how do you find these professionals who will calm you down and sprinkle you in fairy dust on your wedding day? 

Think of the weddings you’ve been in, or have attended. Which friend-brides makeup style did you like the most for yourself. You could have a friend who loves wearing tons of makeup and she looked like a rockstar. However– If you like a fresher look, she may not be the right person to ask. Ask married friends who you remember looked perfect on their wedding day. Chances are they had a great makeup artist they can refer. Google those artists. Look at their other images. Do their images look good? There is also Facebook, Instagram, or Google. Search artists in your region, under various hashtags. (#bridalbeauty, #weddingmakeup, #weddingglamour) Get creative with those hashtags. We are there. You will get instant access to their work. If you’re using a wedding planner, they should have an array of top-notch artists at their disposal. If you’re reading this, send an email to PreDame. This is what we do.

Once you lock in on someone, you will be given the option of a trial, which you should definitely do (more on that below), so you aren’t nervous and are prepared on the big day. You want to feel confident, and your appearance shouldn’t take up space in your brain. The time in the makeup chair should be a peaceful time– in fact, many brides find it’s their only time of calm before the exhilarating flurry of their wedding carries them away.

What is this going to cost me?

Artists have a set rate per face, with the bride paying a bit more of the overhead costs. The bride also gets a little more attention, for obvious reasons. If there are a large number of faces, the artist may need an assistant. With Pre-dame, each client receives a lip product for touch-ups. And the makeup lasts, well into the bouquet toss and after-party. Just click on the package you want, or email the artist, and they’ll pass prices onto you. A decent artist charges somewhere between $250-$350 for the bride. That’s standard rate, across the board.

OH, I was hoping it would cost a little less

Yes, that is said often. It’s good to question price, for all of the services you’ll be receiving. Small anecdote: When I was a counter girl at MAC more than 13 years ago, occasionally people would come in and say “Hey I need my make-up done this weekend can I hire you to come and do it?” and I would reply ‘Of course, yes how much?” and they’d offer me fifty to eighty bucks and I’d light up and shriek“done!” because I was young wasn’t making much and most importantly, I needed experience.  I learned a lot and I did a lot of faces. I once took subway out as far as it could go for fifty bucks to put makeup on a teen bride. Was it worth it to both myself and the bride? Yes. Those are the stories and experiences artists have when they’re learning their work and building their skills. Who knows, you could gamble at a counter and get that great up and coming artist who will be charging way more in a few years. But a gamble is a gamble, and often, you pay for what you get. You want the security of having a true professional at your side.

Do I Need to Do Anything for the Trial?

I love when a bride has done research and thought seriously on how she wishes to look- or has at least begun to fantasize about her overall image. This can be done many ways: Pull images of people you like, and styles of makeup that appeal to you. Make sure you’re focusing on the makeup, not the person. If you bring in 20 pictures of Selena Gomez but her make-up looks different in every photo, and you happen to look more like Reese Witherspoon, then I’ll know you wanna look like a different person. This is a different story altogether from make-up style. However, if you bring me 10 pictures of various people in a smokey eye, then I know you want to try out a smokey eye. Are you starting out at zero and have no earthly idea what you’re doing and just need someone to show you the way? That is OK, too. A bride/client who says “I trust you I have no idea” is going to look just as good as someone with a portfolio of inspiration photos. 

We ask a lot of questions at the trial, and offer to show what our idea of soft/dramatic/natural is, to insure we are all speaking the same language. We try a few different lip options, and take photos in a few different types of light. Often, we’ll ask to look at a few photos of you that you love, so we know how you feel your best. This all condenses into the wedding-day look you’ve always fantasized about. Nothing is compromised. You should be as scrutinizing as you want to be, so there are no surprises. It will simply you at your best.

How Do I Prepare Day of?

Take care of your skin. Drink lots of water. Don’t go crazy in the sun, so wear plenty of SPF. If you don’t use moisturizer, then start using one.(Professional Tip: Everyone should use a facial moisturizer)   Get a facial before the big day, but not the day before– you must give your skin time to relax after a facial. The same goes for a brow appointment. Get them done a a week before, in case your skin has a reaction to the wax/threading. If you want fake lashes, then you will get them. If you use semi-permanent, and regularly get your lashes filled in, then do that a few days before the wedding. I often tell brides that if you think you’ll cry through endlessly throughout the day (which, it’s a big emotional event, and these things happen!) then semi-permanent lashes are a fabulous option. All artists should offer fake lashes at the day of the event, so know if you don’t get semi-permanent lashes, you’ll have an option for big, beautiful bambi-esque lashes at your wedding. Why? Because it’s you’re wedding, and you’re going to get whatever it is you want. Which is kind of like having a fairy godmother who shows up with mascara wands,  so maybe we *do* exist, on a small scale.

I promise that if you follow these steps, you’ll look fabulous on your wedding day. It should be an un-stressful, glamorous experience that will keep you staring back at those photos, blissfully for years to come.