JLo’s Beauty Secrets

If you’re wondering who’s the artist responsible for most of Jlo’s trend setting makeup looks, it’s Scott Barnes. He is Jennifer Lopez’ favorite makeup artist who just launched a book called ” About Face,”  revealing celebrity beauty secrets.

J.Lo was there to attend the book launching, wearing a strapless classic black Louis Vuitton dress. She appears on the book’s cover, and wrote the foreword in support to her makeup stylist and beauty adviser. She shares that Scott Barnes taught her tricks on highlighting and contouring, among other tips that she learned from the beauty guru.

Scott Barnes spills his secrets on replicating JLo’s beauty in “About Face”. According to reports, he wrote easy to follow instructions on doing makeup on yourself. It’s just like hiring Scott Barnes himself to do your makeup, except that it’s your hands doing the moves.

JLo is starring in an upcoming movie, “The Back Up Plan,” which is due for release in April. There are rumors that she will be appearing on the hit TV series “Glee,” soon.

About Face is available from Amazon.com.

About Face is a compendium of everything make-up artist Scott Barnes has learned during his career working with A-list celebrities including Jennifer Lopez, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Jennifer Aniston. About Face is packed with techniques for every area of makeup application. Part One focuses on dramatic makeovers of real women with a twist: each woman comes in looking the best she thinks she can look. The author then deconstructs and debunks their look taking them from attractive to (more…)

Highlight and Contour 101

Applying these 2 concepts on the right places will prevent your face from looking flat on photos. The idea of accentuating and concealing will be largely dependent on how well you can highlight and contour.

These are two essential principles in makeup artistry:

Contour- gives the illusion of depth. A darker shade gives your features more depth and definition by mimicking shadows. This is usually applied to areas you want to recede.

Examples of areas commonly contoured:
sides of the nose
cheeks
eye creases
any prominent feature you want to downplay (jawlines, chin, etc)

Highlight- the opposite of contour. A lighter shade is usually needed to achieve a highlighting effect. Highlighted areas protrude and helps draw attention to the specific area or feature.

Examples of areas commonly highlighted :
cheekbones
browbone
bridge of the nose

To illustrate:

Areas of Jennifer Lopez’ face that are contoured:

Cheeks- to define the hollows of the cheeks and for a more sculpted look
Nose- even if you have a well-chiseled nose like JLo, contouring the side of your nose is will prevent strong lights from making your nose look wider.
Eye creases- the smokey eyeshadow gives strong contrast to the neutral shades on the rest of the face.

Areas of Jennifer Lopez’ face that are highlighted:

Browbones- this defines the arch of the eyebrow and opens up the eyes
Under the eyes- for a fresher and brighter look
Cheekbones- to make it appear higher and add glow to the area
Bridge of the nose- to add contrast to the contour on the sides.