An Entrepreneurial Make-Up Artist Shows Us How to Put Our Best Face Forward [Video]
Make-up artist Dominique Noëlle tells us that less is more when it comes to foundation and creating a fresh faced look.
In Part 1 of our interview with make-up artist Dominique Noëlle, we learned some great skin care basics to keep our skin healthy and glowing. In this Part 2 segment, Noëlle builds on the process, giving us tips and tricks for application of highlighter, foundation and just a bit of soft sculpting (she doesn’t like to refer to it as contouring as she uses a much softer hand in her version). By using just a small amount of these products and really blending well, we can even out our skin tone and create a glowing finish that in itself is a beautiful result. Or for those of you who want to take it to the next level, it can be the perfect canvas to continue with blush, eye color, and lipstick.
Born in New York City to Jamaican parents, Dominique Noëlle spent most of her early life splitting time between the Caribbean, New York, and England. Always living among three cultures she found beauty in each.
Graduating from Baruch College with a B.A. in History & Political Science, Noëlle spent the next six years of her career in Retail Planning, working for NYC retail giants Century 21 Department Stores and The Children’s Place, while dabbling in make-up on the side.
After the birth of her second child, she realized the best thing she could do for her growing family was focus on her skill in make-up artistry. So, she took a leap and transitioned to make-up full time. Enhancing her education by taking courses and workshops at Artist Makeup Academy, New York Makeup Academy, Danessa Myricks University and many others, helped to prepare her for this career shift. With recognition coming from winning New York Magazine‘s The Cut’s Face Race in 2017, working at both NYFW and Miami Swim Week, and with brands and designers from all over the country, Noëlle’s focus is to continue to bring her artistry worldwide.
In this segment of our interview, Noëlle shares that as we’ve started to come out of the pandemic and get used to sometimes wearing masks and sometimes not, depending on the situation, she’s finding that when it comes to foundation and contouring, less is more. She sees make-up trending to much more natural looks with a just a soft glow.
One of her top tips is to apply highlighter before foundation to keep it from creating that streaky unnatural look. Highlighter can be tricky if it’s laid on too thickly and not blended properly. Make sure not to overdo it. A little goes a long way. Layering it under foundation also tamps down the aggressive shine that it can sometimes give off.
Noëlle also shows that women of color can utilize a couple of foundation colors for better skin tone matching. Skin, in general, naturally has a few shades in it so this technique works well as long as you blend, blend, blend. Blending is truly the magic word for make-up application in keeping everything looking natural.
The last tip to finish everything off is what Noëlle refers to as soft sculpting. The overdone, stylized technique popular in the past few years seems to be downtrending these days as women look to give their skin a break and embrace a more natural look.
If you want to make sure that your efforts last as long as possible throughout the day, give your face a mist of setting spray to hold everything in place.
Dominique Noëlle’s 4 steps to creating a beautiful fresh faced canvas include:
- Highlighter (layered under foundation)
- Foundation (Noëlle prefers cream versions for the best blending)
- Soft Sculpting (You can use additional colors of cream foundation to achieve this)
- Setting Spray
You can see Noëlle’s tutorial here with NYC Certified Skin Aesthetician and model, Breanna Seward showing us all of the steps in more detail. Stay tuned for the final segment of our tutorial showing how to create some trending lip and eye looks that you are definitely going to want to experiment with (including neon eyeliner)!
