False lashes can be frustrating and difficult to apply, but here are a few tips to make the process easier:
• First, apply them while tilting your chin up and looking down into a mirror. It will help you see your lashline better.
• Second, don't ever apply a full strip at once. Cut it into quarters and apply each separately. That way you won't have to battle with funky ends poking out -- just be sure to apply them in the correct order.
• As you place them on, aim to stick the falsies to the base of your natural lashes, not your actual eyelid. -- Robin Schoen for Urban Decay
To create a bold or bright lip look, instead of slicking on a lipstick from the tube or lining the outside of your lips first with liner, line the inner most area of your lips with liner first. Then, use a lip brush to work the color outward toward your lip edges. Finish by adding just a bit of lipstick over the liner to finish. This gives a sexier, more modern finish to a bold lip because it won't have any sharp lines on the outer edges. -- Nadine Luke, MAC makeup artist
Photo 13/18
Create your own long lasting eyeshadow
Instead of buying a separate cream eyeshadow base or long lasting shadow, just take an eye pencil and scribble a generous amount of it on the back of your hand. Then dab it onto your eyelids with your fingertip. It's the perfect base for a dramatic shadow look and one that will last all day -- minus creasing. The bonus: dollars saved. -- Gato Zamora, Maybelline New York makeup artist
Photo 14/18
Add texture and shine
Textured hair always sounds like a good idea, but many texturizing products don't leave your hair looking very shiny and healthy. Remedy that by finishing your style with a misting of shine spray. Then, brush over your hair with a kabuki brush (try Ulta Kabuki Brush, $26. It will mess up your hair a bit to give it texture, but you'll still have stunning shine. -- Antoinette Beenders, Aveda hairstylist
Photo 15/18
Get uber-flirty lashes
You've heard that applying a couple of clumps of false lashes to your outer corners creates a sexy effect, but try placing them in the middle of your top lashlines or directly above the outer edge of the iris of your eye. It will give you an amazing flirty effect. -- Andy Koh for Maybelline New York
You might think that because models are so stunning, exotic, sexy, what have you, that they don't need much in the way of hair and makeup to look fabulous. Think again.
While covering the shows at New York Fashion Week, we saw first hand what it takes to get naturally gorgeous, freakishly thin and tall models runway ready. It's truly no small feat. They, like us "real" women, have dark circles, split ends, chapped lips, dull complexions, etc., etc. It's true. Fashion Week is like boot camp for models -- it's physically challenging. Their skin and hair is put through rigorous heat styling and backcombing and their poor faces have had makeup applied and scrubbed off multiple times in a day. This training leaves them looking more like we do every day (just being honest here).
That's why the artists working in the trenches backstage have such very important jobs to do. In mere minutes (yes, on occasion they literally have five to 10 minutes to get a model completely ready) they turn these girls into the glamazons we know them to be. And they do it by using the beauty tips they've picked up over the years. The go-to secrets that have worked for them over and over again on red carpets, at photo shoots and, obviously, while backstage.
They were nice enough to share some of these secrets with us. Seriously, they had to style hair or apply makeup -- under serious time pressure -- while we hovered over them, notebooks in hand. Thank you beautiful, talented artists!
