Makeup Tips for Headshot and Portrait Photography

Makeup makes a DIFFERENCE in a headshot, period. Good makeup makes you and your photograph look good.

Do-it-yourself or hire a professional?

If you are reasonably good at applying makeup yourself, and would rather do it yourself, here are some basic points that you might find useful. I recommend a few practices before your session.

Beaupix Studio woks with several experienced professional makeup artists and can book one for your session.

Want to learn makeup for photography work? Here’re two books that Beaupix Photographer found useful:

• Gretchen Davis and Mindy Hall, 2008. The makeup artist handbook, Oxford, UK: Focal Press.
• Kevyn Aucoin, 2000. Face Forward, Boston: Little, Brown and Company.
• Makeup Geek TV, a youtube channel
• Michelle Phan, a youtube channel

Natural Look vs Light makeup

Natural look makeup for a photo shoot does not mean light makeup by daily makeup standards. You’ll be applying a good amount of foundation and using a lot of powder, compared to when you are going to, say, a workplace. What you need is good coverage combined with natural look finish. Don’t be confused!

Color of foundation

Match the color of foundation to the natural color of your skin in neck/chest area. You may know the color that looks the best on you, and that is fine for social events. However, in photography, nothing is worse than showing different colors on your face than the rest of your skin. As long as you closely match the color of your foundation to the color of your skin, then the whole skin color can be adjusted to make it look most attractive (darker or warmer) during editing.

When doing makeup for wedding or other events, where photography is a significant component, you might want to keep this in mind, as well.

Lips and eyes

The color of the lips and eye accents should be one notch darker than the best look in person. The lips should be shifted to the direction of darker red, and the eye accents should be one notch heavier. You can even wear false lashes for most types of work other than the actor’s headshot. Keep this in mind: the photographic lighting biases your face color to the lighter side.

Blush

You can use blush, and again one small notch darker than the best look in person. However, please make sure to make a few applications in small quantities. The first time should be applied and spread in a wide circle, and the second and third in progressively smaller areas. This is to make sure that the edges of the blush are gradual and not abrupt. You can always add more, but once you apply too much in one application, it is hard to blur the edge or remove some.

Powder

Don’t be afraid to use a lot more powder than usual. A lot of powder is routinely used in fashion and beauty photography to reduce shine and make the skin look matte. You will realize that a professional makeup artist will keep applying powder every 10–20 minutes of the shoot to prevent shiny skin. You should bring yours and apply extra powder regularly.

Hair (also for men)

You may want to use hair spray, gel, and other products to tame frizz and make your hair look healthy. Make sure to avoid products that give a matte look. These are fine for some situations, but not for a photoshoot. Matte finished hair will look dull and lifeless in pictures. Instead, use hair products that enhance shine. Hair shine sprays of various kinds are available for women (Biosilk spray is a favorite in the studio) and American Crew makes a good line of hair products for men.

Review: MAC powder products

MAC Blot Powder (#2) has more gray and less red, thus is duller and appears darker in photographs than MAC Mineralize Skinfinish powder of comparable shades (#1) or an even darker shade (#3). MAC Mineralize Skinfinish powders have more red and less gray. Apparently, they market Blot Powder for people with more oily skin to control shine, and being more modestly toned, it’s more forgiving of imprecision in application. However, faces finished with this Blot Powder look lifeless in photography, and are difficult to retouch in order to regain the look of a healthy skin tone, while those finished with Mineralize Skinfinish powders look more lively, even when toned down during the retouching process. (Review by Beaupix photographer)