Makeup 101

Whether you're the kind of girl who wakes up every morning and pulls her hair back into a ponytail, applies a few coats of mascara, and slides on some lipgloss, or the type of girl who makes sure that her eyeshadow always matches her outfit and loves to experiment with bold lipsticks and colored mascaras, there comes a time in every girl's life when she wants to try something new and different with her looks. Here are just a few tips and ideas to help you stay up with the current makeup trends and hopefully allow you to try something fun and different!

Just as different clothing styles become more or less popular over time, so do makeup styles. At the moment, here are a few of the most trendy looks. First of all, bold bright lipstick is really in right now. Many celebrities are tossing a regular lip gloss for bright pinks and dark reds. The one thing to remember when trying out this style is that you must always choose just your eyes or just your mouth to focus on. You can play up either one, but never both. If you go dark on the eyes and lips you could end up looking like a clown. However, by making your eyes light and simple (a few coats of mascara, little liner, and pale eyeshadows), it won't conflict with your eyecatching lips. Another especially popular style right now is using bronzer to highlight one's face. To apply bronzer you should suck in your cheeks and brush it along the line that forms in your cheeks from the edge of your mouth back to your temples. Also apply it anywhere that the sun would hit your face to achieve a sunkissed glow. (You can also apply a little bit of blush to the center of your cheeks to give yourself some color.)

Now for the eyes. Remember, like I said before, if you choose to use these tips and go all out on your eyes, tone down your lips with a simple gloss or lighter shade of lipstick. You don't want your face to be competing with itself. An especially popular eye trick right now is the smokey look. This is achieved by first taking a lining pencil and tracing around your entire eye. Then, using your finger or a q-tip, smudge the line beneath your eye slightly so it's a softer line. (Don't do it too much or you'll end up looking like a raccoon.) Next choose an eyeshadow in a dark color (gray or black) and apply it to the outside right corner of you eyelid. You and also apply it right along the lines made by your eyeliner but only on the outer edges of the eye. On the rest of your eylelid apply a slightly lighter shade, such as purple, silver, or blue. To finish it up, apply a few shades of black mascara to both your top and bottom lashes. Another fun idea to try is to use a liquid eyeliner to line the top of your eye but then drag it out so the line extends past your eye and then drag it up slightly. This will give you a cat-eye look (kind of exciting for parties and special events). Another thing to try is the doll look. Apply a thin line of eyeliner along the top of your eye and then also inside of the bottom eyelashes. (You want the liner to make your eye more defined but not be very noticable so do it dark but thin.) Apply a simple light pink or cream eye shadow. Now use an eyelash curler and then begin to apply mascara, and a lot of it! You want to make the mascara very dark and thick so that it looks like you only have a few, very long eye lashes. Make sure that your lower lashes are just as thick and dark and the upper ones and this will give you a wide eyed doll like look. (I suggest LashBlast by CoverGirl.)

Hopefully you will be able to experiment with a few of these ideas. Be sure to comment below if you have any other creative makeup ideas or fun tips. I'd love to hear them, as I'm sure everyone else would. Also, let me know if these looks worked for you! :) Have fun!!