WHETHER YOU’VE CHOSEN TO GO ALL-IN BALD OR ARE EXPERIENCING HAIR THINNING AROUND YOUR HAIRLINE OR A WIDENING PART LINE, YOU’LL STILL WANT TO ACCENTUATE YOUR POSITIVE FEATURES TO DETRACT FROM ANY PERCEIVED ATTENTION TO YOUR HAIR LOSS.
Here’s how …
Remember, your hair loss may be all-important in your life, but other people, especially new ones you meet for the first time, are not focused on it. “Either way, attention shines a lot more on your face because you don’t have the veil of hair to hide behind, so you’ll need an arsenal of makeup tricks up your sleeve to keep the attention where you want it,” says Washington, D.C-based celebrity and editorial makeup artist Monae Everett.
Everett advises you to ask yourself, “What’s my best feature?” When you accentuate the positive, you detract from the negative, so you’ll definitely want to take a good, hard look in the mirror and find your best feature. “You never want to accentuate two or more features, because that can be overwhelming,” she adds. “Just pick your best one and learn some industry makeup tricks to make it bold and beautiful.”
Lips: Accentuate lush lips with red or pink
“If your lips are your best feature, don’t stay drab and stick to neutrals to stay “safe,” because that strategy can completely wash out your face,” cautions Everett. “Go for reds or pinks; see which works best for your skin tone and use it to draw attention into the center of your face, away from your hairline and into your great smile and whatever you are saying.” And above all, cautions Everett, keep lips in good shape — don’t let them get chapped or cracked.
Eyes: Emphasize gorgeous eyes
“Say you have thin lips that don’t hold the lipstick well, then opt for bringing out your eyes to keep people’s attention on your inner face and from straying upward to your hairline,” advises Everett. Use these tricks of the trade to highlight the color and shape of your eyes, naturally:
Brown eyes shine with warm, neutral browns; olives; bronzes and tan colors.
Green eyes pop with warm orange and bronze tones.
Cool grays are the perfect backdrop for blue eyes.
Now work the shape:
“Generally when applying eye shadow, use three tones — that’s why shadow is usually packaged that way. Apply the medium tone all over the lid, the darker tone in the outside corner, and the lighter tone on the inside corner,” advises Everett. “If your eyes are too shallow and missing the crease line, in-set and seem hidden or shadowed by the brow bone, wide-set and too far apart, or close-set and too close together, you can change the effect with proper makeup placement.”
- Shallow eyes: Give yourself a darker shade in the miss ing crease and darken the outside corner.
- In-set eyes: Don’t darken a prominent crease — instead line the lid so eyes don’t recede.
- Wide-set eyes: Darken the inside to draw eyes together a bit.
- Close-set eyes: Use the lighter color on the inside corner to separate eyes and draw attention to center of face
Use your eyebrows if you have them!
If you are not suffering from alopecia universalis or total hair loss from chemotherapy, use your eyebrows to your full advantage, advises Everett. “Your brows are Mother Nature’s way of properly framing your face, and you want to have a nice full frame, so don’t ignore their natural shape … Gone are the days of over-plucking and skinny brows, because natural brows are in. Not everybody has to have a prominent arch. Pay attention to the brow shape you’ve been given and work it minimally from there,” she adds. “When it comes to hair loss issues, the thicker the brow the better because brows draw the attention to the inside of your face.” Everett advises you to just pluck the stray hairs outside of the general shape they’ve been. “Do pay attention to any stray hairs in between brows, because a unibrow is never a point of focus.”
When it comes to applying makeup to detract from a hair loss issue or problem, bring out the best of what have. “But don’t overdo it,” says Everett. “That’s why we don’t over-pluck, use crazy colors and accentuate every facial feature — because you don’t want to look overdone. You just want people to notice you and not your hair loss. That being said, pay attention to your skin — and be sure to protect it from the sun — and pluck any facial hair that might spring up.”