Glenview makeup artist Laura Gorman is no stranger to the red carpet.
With a client list that has included Courtney Cox, Nicolette Sheridan and Alec Baldwin, Gorman most recently did makeup for Scott Bakula and wife Chelsea Field at this year’s Golden Globes (pictured below).
How do you get a gorgeous red-carpet look at home? Gorman shared her best tips that she uses to beautify some of Hollywood’s biggest stars.
1. Make your own BB cream for flawless skin.
Shave time off your morning routine by creating an all-in-one super product. “Combine your moisturizer, primer and foundation all together to be very fast and easy and be kind of like a BB cream or CC cream,” Gorman says.
Mix together a pearl-size amount of each product with a foundation brush, and apply the mixture as you would foundation.
2. Contour and highlight to hide and enhance certain features.
Gorman’s rule of thumb: “Shade any areas you want to sink in. Anything you darken recedes, and anything you highlight brings it to life.”
Suck in your cheeks and use a powder or angle brush to chisel out your bone structure. Apply a darker, matte bronzer under the cheekbone from mid-eye to the hairline, angling upward. You can also contour around the outer forehead near the hairline, and along the jawline.
After you’ve shaded certain areas, use a highlighter to highlight just below the brow, the bridge of the nose, and the cheekbones. This will help your skin look more luminous and dewy.
3. Use eyeliner to line the upper rim of your eye.
To create the appearance of thick, full lashes, lift up your lid and line the upper membrane of the eye, the part that is under the lashes. Then use liner to feather in a dark line close to the top lashes, starting and stopping at the same place until you get to the end of the eye, rather than drawing a singular line.
“The closer you can get to the lashes, the more you’ll create that look of having more lashes than it appears,” Gorman says. “It really makes the eyes look very dark at the roots with long, luscious lashes, and it’s easy to do.”
4. Use shadow to create a “three-dimensional” eye.
Hide signs of aging on the eyes by creating a 3-D eye. Use a matte brown shadow to darken the crease, a sheen highlighting color on the lid, and a matte color in the outer corner to create an eye-popping optical illusion.
“This is a great tip for saggy eyes when you get older,” Gorman says. “It gives your eye more of a youthful look, because when you darken [the crease] with a matte color it gives the illusion of pushing that skin back.”
5. Create full brows with shadow rather than pencil.
It’s time to give the oft-neglected eyebrows a little extra attention. Fill in the brows with a shadow instead of a pencil for a softer look. “Use an angle brush and a matte brown shadow to gently fill in the brows—careful to pick a shade that works best with your coloring,” Gorman says. “Go along the hairs for a fuller, more natural look. Even when you don’t have a lot of eye makeup on, if you just add to the brow you really enhance the look.”
6. Use white eyeliner to wake up tired eyes.
Fake a few extra hours of sleep with this super-easy trick: “Putting the white on the bottom part of the membrane makes the eyes appear bigger, more doe-like, more circular, and takes the red out of the eyes, so it makes the eyes look brighter,” Gorman says. “That membrane will be pink when you’re tired, and if you put the white on it—or a flesh-colored pencil—it can give the eyes a real pop.”
7. Skip the black for a smoky eye.
Although Gorman is a big fan of the smoky eye, she rarely uses black to achieve the look. Use brown, plum or mauve shades to make it more wearable. “It’s a softer smoky eye that makes it easier for people to try something to pump up their eyes and not have it look over the top.”
Apply different shades of brown or plum, going darker from the lid to the crease, accented with an even darker shade on the outer corner. And don’t forget to blend with a clean, fluffy eye shadow brush. “Blending prevents it from looking like a black eye.”
8. Always line the lips for bold colors.
There’s nothing worse than a bold lip that wears off before lunch. Create a long-lasting lip by using a liner that’s the same color of the lipstick. “With [bold] colors, I like to line the entire lip so you have a base,” she says. “You have twice as much wearing power.”
9. Match your makeup with your jewelry.
Matchy-matchy no more! Rather than matching your makeup with the color of your dress, Gorman likes to match with the jewelry color.
“I’d be more apt to put gold shadow on the lid with a contouring color that goes darker in the corner, with darker brown in crease and outer corner, to match with the color of the jewelry—not the color of the dress.” Pair silvery-blue metallic and navy hues with silver jewelry.
To pull in a pretty jewel tone from a dress without going overboard, dust a little of a matching color over your already-done eyes.
10. Experiment, and try something new!
Don’t be afraid to break out of your beauty rut and incorporate some of spring’s hottest trends into your makeup regimen. “For the spring, you’ll see a heavy liner, but you won’t see a lot of shadow,” Gorman says. “You’ll also see a heavy lip, a lot of oranges, pinks and reds.”
And most importantly, have fun! “Think of [makeup] more as an accessory, and you’ll get more excited about trying new things,” she says. “It just means you’re constantly wanting to be your best self, and I think at any age that’s great.”
