Article - Skin Care for African American Women: “Make-me-up” Make-Up Tips

The very purpose of makeup is to help highlight your best African-American features and accentuate your outer beauty - not make you beautiful. Therefore, the right type of makeup and the way it is applied is essential.

Just like ethnic skin care, applying makeup is a step by step process in order to assure you are looking your absolute best.

African-American women make the common mistake of thinking that “natural makeup” means wearing no makeup at all. This works for some women, but for most of us humans, we need a little bit of help.

Natural makeup simply means putting on makeup that helps enhance your African-American skin’s natural beauty without overdoing it and looking like a painted doll. This makes finding the right shade for your African-American skin tone a key factor when applying makeup.

One of the first things to recognize is your skin’s undertone. An undertone is just a pale or subdued color that can be seen through another color. These undertones can vary based on how dark your skin is. Most African-American women’s skin has a blue undertone.

Don’t assume that your undertone is blue right away, because depending on your shade of skin, it could potentially be a gold or pink undertone. Check with your aesthetician to find your undertone.

An easy way to know what type of eye makeup should be applied during the day is to stay neutral. Go ahead and whip out those bold shades of blue and green eye shadows when going out for a night on the town, but during the day, try to stick with more earthy colors such as beiges, browns, light pinks, and anything neutral.

African-American women tend to have bigger, fuller lips than other ethnicities so make sure to accentuate them! There’s no need to color those lusciously kissable lips with anything bright. A sheer lip gloss or one with a very faint color will not only look more natural, but will suit you better as well. Along with this, using a lip liner close in color with your lip gloss will really help them stand out.

In the end, your inner beauty is what really comes into play and will show up with or without the makeup in place so remember to just have fun with it!

In order to help prep your skin for makeup application there are a few things you should take into account. Ethnic skin care consists of taking care of your skin properly. So, here are a few things to avoid.

Things to avoid at all costs:

* Makeup that contains any type of oils. This can lead to nasty breakouts and clogged pores!

* Any type of toners, fragrances, or cleansers that contain traces of alcohol. Not only can this irritate your beautiful African-American skin - it can also dry it out leaving it looking and feeling ashy.

* Fabric softeners and detergents that contain any type of fragrances or dyes. Yes, they might smell good, but African American skin can be extremely sensitive to the chemicals, causing breakouts, rashes, and dry, ashy skin.

* Alcohol! Consuming large amounts of alcohol or drinking on a regular basis tends to leave your skin dehydrated - drying it out and making it look dull.



Dedicated to Your Beauty,

Juliette Samuel, Esthetician/Publisher for NYRAJU Skin Care

NYRAJU Skin Care.com has a complete selection of Natural Skin & Hair Care products for People of Color.

To browse and shop our complete catalog, click here: http://www.nyrajuskincare.com