6 Summer Bridal Beauty Tips To Avoid A Makeup Meltdown

Gorgeous sunny summer weather makes for the perfect backdrop for your wedding. But the hot and sometimes humid weather can set you up for a makeup meltdown, so here are 6 tips to keep your summer wedding makeup looking flawless and staying in place until the night is over.

Use A Light Moisturizer.
Unless you have dry skin use a lightweight, gel formula moisturizer. Apply it as soon as you get out of the shower and give it plenty of time to soak in before you move on to makeup.
Blot away any residue on the surface of the skin with tissue before starting makeup.
A fabulous alternative is to use a gel sheet mask to revitalize your skin. Try Glacier Water Gel Mask from Memebox

Invest In A Mattifying Primer
Give your complexion all the help you can by using a high quality mattifying primer to keep foundation in place and too aid in fighting shine. Mattifiers have light diffusing properties that will stop light from bouncing off the smooth planes on your face.
Try Hyaluronic Hydra Primer by Terry

Check Your Foundation Formulation.
If you are being airbrushed on your wedding day ask for a water based formula rather than a silicone base. Water based is much more sheer and weightless.
If you are using traditional foundation keep your application as sheer as possible. The thicker the application the more gooey it will look as it heats up. Try Giorgio Armani Lasting Silk SPF 20 Foundation at Nordstrom.com

Be Aware Of Lash Length.
If you will be outdoors or are having outdoor photography be cautious with strip lashes and with the length of your false lashes.
A lash that is too dense will collapse your eye and make you look like you are squinting in all your pictures. (The dense black line of the lash will grab light and suck it in).
Lashes that are too long will act like an awning over your eyes in the sunlight, creating  a shadow below which leaves you looking tired and haggard.
The same applies with lash extensions - they may look good indoors but if they are too long or too dense they can destroy your look when you step  outside.

Seal It with A Kiss.
A matte lip can be a lifesaver on a hot or humid day.
Matte lips can tone down the extra glow or shine you are sporting when it's hot outside and act as a neutralizing balance.
A glossy lip can make your whole face appear extra shiny.
Matte lips don't slip, and with a good color payoff last longer too.
Try Charlotte Tilbury Matte Revolution in Miss Kensington

Finishing Spray.
A light misting of finishing spray can help hold everything in place on a humid, steamy day. Try Face Atelier Face Finish from FaceAtelier.com

The 10 Best BB and CC Creams For Summer

Are you in the market for a new BB or CC cream?

Check out the options that Vogue.com considers to be 

The 10 Best BB and CC Creams For Summer

The official coming of summer has us embracing a newly pared-down routine—streamlining our overloaded makeup bags in favor of multitasking options that channel the almost-bare mood of the season. Translation: If you’re still using the same creamy, medium coverage foundation you swore by all spring, it’s time to lighten up. Fortunately, the newest wave of beauty balms and color correctors—more commonly known as BB and CC creams—pack a checklist of benefits into a single tube while remaining virtually invisible on the skin for straight-from-the-beach touchups. Chanel CC Cream’s featherweight, pigment-evening formula prescription provides SPF 50 along with antiaging peach extract and moisturizing hyaluronic acid. Physicians Formula Super CC+ Eye Cream SPF 30 relieves puffiness and blurs lines—ensuring eyes remain as bright as their cloudless, sun-drenched surroundings—while Giorgio Armani’s supernaturally luminous offeringleaves skin with the kind of glow that rivals a good facialist’s work. Here are the ten tinted balms and creams we’re stocking up on this vacation season.

L’Oréal Magic Skin Beautifier BB Cream, $11
Chanel CC Cream Complete Correction Sunscreen Broad Spectrum SPF 50, $55
Physicians Formula Super CC+ Eye Cream SPF 30, $13
La Roche Posay Effaclar BB Blur Cream Mousse, $30
Tarte Amazonian Clay BB Illuminating Moisturizer, $32
Bobbi Brown BB Cream SPF 35, $20
Peter Thomas Roth CC Cream, $48
Dior Diorsnow UV Shield BB Crème Broad Spectrum SPF 50, $55
Kate Somerville IllumiKate CC Cream Broad Spectrum SPF 50, $48

Giorgio Armani Luminessence CC Color Control Bright Moisturizer SPF 35, $52

9 Steps To Perfect 4th Of July Makeup

 9 Steps To Perfect 4th of July Makeup

Its 4th of July weekend, which in America is a big holiday weekend, but in the rest of the northern hemisphere

is just another summer weekend.

Adriana Lima in Victoria's Secret Bikini

Regardless of whether or not you are flying the stars and bars

this weekend, it's the perfect time to run through some 

summer makeup tips, and more specifically tips to have you 

looking fabulous at pool parties, lake parties, beach parties

- whatever outdoor summer event you are attending.

There are 2 major areas in makeup where girls mess up 

at this time of the year.

The first is looking like you have a face full of makeup on.

Thick or heavy makeup looks ridiculous on a hot summer's day.

The idea is to look like you have next to nothing on your face, 

and just look glowy and gorgeous.

The second is the absolute bane of my makeup artist life,

even worse than Instagram-style overcontouring (my second pet peeve), it's the flagrant misuse and abuse of bronzer. Equal parts one of the most wonderful makeup products ever created, and also the most violated makeup product ever created.

When I was with SheKnows.com we shot a beauty segment about it. Check it out here Bronzer 101

Now that we know we don't want to look like makeup-face, and we don't want to commit crimes with bronzer, here's what we do want to do:

Kate Upton Sports Illustrated

1. Start off with SPF

There's nothing pretty about a sunburned face, or a face ravaged with sun damage, so start out with a very liberal application of a broad spectrum facial SPF. You need to use the highest number you can find, and preferably use one that has a dry finish, so that you don't look gooey and slimey.

I use Neutrogena Dry Touch With Helioplex, SPF 85+ or 100+ 

2. Use a primer

Give your SPF a few minutes to really soak in to your skin, then follow it with a good primer.

If your skin has even color ( or if you have been using a facial self tanner), the smoothing effects of primer maybe all you need to get your complexion looking fantastic.

Candace Swanepoel Bikini

3. Use a BB Cream

If you need help evening out your skin tone, lightly apply a thin coat of BB Cream with a duo fiber brush.

The idea is not to look like foundation-face, but just to even out the color a little.

4. Color correct your eye area.

You don't want any heavy concealer here, and often your BB Cream will be more than enough so disguise any under eye action, but the other part of the equation is to even out the skin on your upper lids. Either use BB Cream, or if you still see a little discoloration lightly apply something to neutralize it, like MAC Paint Pot in Painterly or Soft Ocher.

5. Use a soft gold shadow

If you still need a little love on your eyelids to make your eyes sparkle, use a soft champagne gold wash of color. This is not about executing a killer eye makeup, instead it is about brightening the eye, just a little.

6. Work your lashes

Curl your lashes then go to town with tons of mascara. If you are water bound use waterproof, otherwise use water resistant. Make sure your lashes look lengthened and glossy, not clumped and full of product. Its about opening up the eye and making it look bright.

7.  Use a light wash of color on the cheeks.

I love cream blushes to death, but some can look too slimey mid summer when its hot and humid. Try Inglot liquid blush or Nars The Multiple to give yourself a natural looking flush of color.

8. Accent your brows

Running some color and accent through your brows pulls any look together, and creates a fabulous focal point when you a doing a minimal makeup look.  You don't want them overly defined or painted on, but instead just enough to give the face some structure and dimension, and to frame the eyes.

Coral lips

9. Finish with a pop of color

Finish your look with a pop of color on the lip.  Try the season's "it" color, a bright coral or orange, whiten your teeth with a gorgeous raspberry or a magenta, and seal the deal with a fresh glossy sheen.