The Glowy Skin Trend: 6 Quick Tips On How To Pull This Look Off With Ease
I have always been a little obsessed with flawless looking skin.
I spend a lot of time perfecting my client’s skin by using various products and techniques to achieve a perfect skin finish. One of 2017’s makeup trends is glowy skin. The trend next year is about skin that glows rather than skin that shines or sparkles. Glowy skin is youthful in appearance and one of my all time favourite skin finishes.
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The fact is most of us weren’t born with beautiful even looking skin. Those that have been blessed with gorgeous skin are the lucky ones. The rest of us need to work at it!
Surprisingly perfecting skin doesn’t always take a lot of makeup. In fact often times using less product will give better results. It’s all in the technique of the application and ensuring you use the correct foundation formulation for your skin type. While some of my clients prefer full coverage foundation, most ask for a light finish. In other words, they don’t want to look overly made up or to actually feel the foundation on their skin.
Here are my 6 tips for achieving one of 2017’s biggest makeup trends.
1. Start with a freshly washed face. Then moisturize your face well using your favourite moisturizer. Allow your moisturizer to sink into your skin, about a minute or so.
Vicki’s all time favourite face cream:
Embryolisse Lait-Creme Concentre
2. Apply a small amount of MAC strobe cream onto your cheeks and the bridge of your nose. Apply the cream using your warm fingers.
3. Apply your foundation.
Before we get into how to apply your foundation to achieve the glowy skin trend of 2017, here’s a little background info about foundations:
The most popular foundation formulations are liquid based and are very easy to apply. Most foundations on the retail market will contain some amount of silicone. Silicone is a synthetic substance added to many beauty products including cosmetics and hair products. You can feel the amount of silicone in any foundation by the feel of it on your skin. When I’m teaching makeup lessons I always have my client/student apply a few different foundations to the back of their hand and have them blend it in themselves. Foundations with larger amounts of silicone have a heavier, silkier, almost slippery feel to them. They feel luxurious. Those with less silicone feel a little more dry and/or give a more matte finish with less ‘slip’ to the skin.
For those of you at home, try to see if you can feel the difference in formulations yourself . You can also try this tip when shopping for foundations. If you like a heavier, silkier feeling foundation purchase one that has more silicone in it. Likewise, if you prefer a more matte finish choose a foundation with less silicone in it.
Tip! Remember, there is no ideal foundation or “one size fits all” type of foundation. It’s a matter of finding the texture you like based on how oily or dry your skin is. Dry skin types usually seek out foundations with larger amount of silicone in them. Those with oily or acne prone skin often opt for less silicone in their foundation.
When looking at the ingredient list in foundations beware that cosmetic companies use other words for silicone.
The most popular names used for silicone are Dimethicone, Dimethicone/Vinyl Dimethicone, Cyclopentasiloxane/Cyclohexasiloxane and Phenyl Trimethicone. Please note that all foundations will have water in them – it’s needed to create a liquid that is spreadable. Just because water is in the foundation ingredient list doesn’t mean the foundation is water based. If Dimethicone, Dimethicone/Vinyl Dimethicone, Cyclopentasiloxane/Cyclohexasiloxane or Phenyl Trimethicone is part of the ingredient list it’s a silicone based foundation. Watch for where silicone is placed within the ingredient list to determine the amount that is in that bottle of foundation. (near the top of the list means more silicone; near the bottom means less silicone)
Vicki’s favourite foundations for glowy skin are:
Best technique for applying foundation for a glowy skin finish:
- apply 6 dots of your foundation onto your skin. 1 dot on the forehead, 2 dots on either side of your cheeks close to your nose and 1 dot on your chin.
- Take a damp beauty blender and stipple the foundation into the skin starting from the centre of your face and working outwards. “Stippling” simply means to lightly tap the product/foundation into your skin rather than swiping the product back and forth. You will use less product this way and will achieve a more ‘skin like’ finish.
- Finish off your foundation by using a Kabuki style buff brush and lightly buff the edges of your foundation out towards your ears, hairline and down your neck.
4. Now add concealer only to areas that require it such as under your eyes or on areas of your skin that are discoloured like the nose and chin area. It’s very important that you only add a small amount of concealer and that you blend it well using either your warm fingers or a damp beauty blender. The glowy skin look is about perfecting your skin, not covering it up too heavily with foundation and concealer.
Vicki’s favourite concealers that leave a moisturized look and feel to the skin:
Tarte Maracuja Creaseless Concealer
5. 
Now add a small amount of finely milled powder to your T-zone only.
6. To get a really beautiful glowy youthful skin finish apply a highlighter or a strobing product on your cheekbones and the bridge of your nose. Be careful that your product isn’t too shimmery. It’s all about the “glow” not the shine next year!
Vicki’s favourite highlighting products:
Face Atelier Ultra Sheer Pro
Tom Ford Skin Illuminating Powder
