The Fabulous Fall Face

By Shelly Ballestero
Licensed Esthetician

CBN.com – Fall’s most wanted beauty—purples, pinks, and charcoals. Some of us may be tired of bronzers and bare lips. What we want now is color!

Let’s start with the basics: your foundation. Summer is over and your skin color may fade a little due to weather changes, depending on what climate you live in. Here are some inexpensive picks that look like a million bucks. Try Physicians Formula Mineral Wear or Bare Minerals, which has great coverage and won’t irritate skin. If you like liquid foundation, another choice is L’Oreal Paris True Match Super-Blendable Makeup.

Need a lift? Give yourself a brow lift with a highlighter and a pencil. Full brows are in, so don’t forget to pencil or shadow in the framework to your eyes. If you have lighter hair, darken your brows one shade; if hair is darker, lighten up a notch. By applying a highlighter above and below the brow, it will give your eyes a lift. Try Bare Minerals, which has a dual highlighter—one side is light pink, and the other light cream (Sephora.com) and it lasts for a year. Sephora has a similar product called Light Touch Highlighter. Brush on inner and outer corners of eyes to widen or at the folds of your nose, wherever needs to be lightened.

Want beautiful, bright eyes? Choose hues wisely. While blues, greens, and purples are universally flattering, try to pick a shade based on your skin tone, not your eye color. This fall’s vibrant palette includes one of my favorite colors… purple! I like Arbonne’s Serenity. It’s one of their fall collection’s talc-free shades, and it’s cost effective, too.

Here are some tips to achieving smoky purple eyes. Use a deep, gray shade along the lashes, smudge, and then press a purple shadow on top, extending the color up over the eyelid. Below the brow, lightly dust a golden color. (A wash of gold shadow brings light to the eyes so that they look open and rested.) Then use a Q-tip to apply a shimmer of opal on the inner corner of your eyes.

Pump up the volume with long lasting lashes. How do you get the look without emptying your bank book? It’s easy. Check out Rimmel Lycra Lash Extender in black (at drugstores) or Maybeline Great Lash. If you want to splurge, Dior Show mascara is great (Sephora.com). Avoid clumping up mascara by wiping brush off with tissue. Here’s another tip: Before applying mascara, use an eyelash curler. Heat it up with a blow dryer for more curling power. Try Maybelline’s eyelash curler.

On cheeks use a mauve color or even apricot. Be sure to apply on apples of cheeks and blend. Emmy Award winning makeup artist Eve Pearl showed me a way to make cheek color pop: use translucent powder directly underneath blush with a powder puff instead of a brush. Here’s a trick for face powder not to look caked-on: wrap the puff around your finger, load it up with powder, and then roll it over the skin instead of patting. This method will allow powder to spread on evenly.

Extreme lip shine is beautiful on pastel-colored lips. First tone lips down with concealer. Then use your finger and apply the opal eye shadow on the middle of lips and top. (Try Bare Minerals.) Line lips with Arbonne’s Innocent or Mac pencil in Spice, being sure to fill in the corners and build lightly and fade into the middle of the lip. Top off with a shiny gloss like L’Oreal’s Butterscotch or Bubblegum.

Whichever colors you choose this fall, get ready to look and feel fabulous with your God-given assets. Remember, the best makeup of all is joy!

Shelly Ballestero is a licensed esthetician, make-up artist, beauty editor of Lifestyle Magazine, and author. Shelly has studied under Emmy Award winner Eve Pearl, head make-up artist for ABC's The View. In addition, Shelly is one of the make-up experts for Jane Iredale cosmetics and participates in the International Esthetics, Cosmetics & Spa conference. Shelly and her husband, Angelo, a worship pastor, live in Windermere, Florida, with their two children. (Photo of Shelly courtesy of Katie Meehan, www.phfocus.com.)