Tips and techniques I learned from the Makeup Master Mario Dedivanovic.
A few weeks ago I flew out to New York to take Mario Dedivanovic’s The Master Class with Kim Kardashian West. The tips, tricks and techniques I learned in this class have completely transformed not only the way my makeup looks, but how long it lasts! Here are my top five faves.
1. Start with your brows.
The first thing you should be doing is your eyebrows. It sets the tone for your entire makeup look. Once you see how your brows turn out, then you can move on to your eye makeup. This way you don’t accidentally end up with a strong eye and strong brow which can make you look harsh and mean. I’ve found that I have to go back and touch up my brows at the end because I somehow always get foundation on them! Mario didn’t really have to do that because, you know, he’s amazing!
2. Use a cream eyeshadow as your base.
This was one of my favorite things I learned in the class! After priming the eye using Laura Mercier’s Secret Camouflage in a mixture of SC-1 and SC-4 which he blended in using a beauty blender and setting with Laura Mercier’s Setting Powder using a Stila brush #6, Mario started the eyes using a cream eyeshadow. This added color and texture. You use a light sheer layer and blend, blend, blend. He used a shadow by Tom Ford called ‘Spice’ #04. When you do this I’ve found the less product you use is better. When Mario did this he would take a tiny amount of the product and lightly dab it on. He did this over and over until it was blended out over the entire eye lid. It’s easy to go overboard quickly on this- so remember less is more! When done properly this gives you the base for a beautiful blown out eye look!
3. Layer your eyeliner.
Eyeliner is my biggest struggle! If I can get one layer on evenly with out rubbing the sides of my eyes raw with a q-tip, I’m impressed! If you can get this down though, it looks gorgeous and it’s not going anywhere! Here’s how the master him self did it. Start with a pencil eyeliner, he used Charlotte Tilbury’s dark matte brown eye pencil to create a line that is thicker on the outer corner and thinner on the inner corner in several buildable layers. Next, he used Urban Decay’s eyeliner pencil and layered it over the top. You can blend this like he did using a Sigma E21 smudge brush to lightly smoke the Liner out and blend using a small soft brush. Now, you want to line the roots of your lash with a gel liner, he used Sigma’s E46 brush to do this. Last, use a thin brush to apply a liquid eyeliner. He used Mac’s matte blue black eyeliner. Good luck guys! If you can do this, can you please come over and do it for me!? A little piece of advise he gave for anyone who finds applying liner to be difficult- lean your elbow on a table then draw a dot on the outer corners of each of your eyes and work from there!
4. Don’t apply foundation under your eyes.
Before this class, I used to start my makeup by putting foundation all over my face and then going over my under eye with a lighter concealer to brighten it. I couldn’t believe how different my makeup looked when I changed this! Here’s the new way. After cleaning your under eye with a makeup remover wipe to get off any shadow that has fallen down, apply small amounts of concealer under your eyes and blend in using a beauty blender. Mario started by using Laura Mercier’s Secret Camouflage in SC-4. I can’t remember if he layered it with SC-1 like he did to prime the eye because I didn’t write it down, but I like to blend the two together on the under eye as well! Over the top of this, apply a liquid concealer. Mario used Nars Radiant Creamy Concealer in the color ‘Ginger’ and then over that he applied it in the color ‘Honey’. If you have more mature skin, he suggested using Makeup Forever’s ‘Lift’ concealer. Something that I noticed he did was he would use tiny amounts of product and then blend it in very well over and over, building the amount of product. I personally used to put the amount of product I wanted to use on my face and then blend it in, but I’ve found that using small amounts of product and building it gives you a much more seamless beautiful look. Now you can bake your under eye using a translucent powder to set it. A tip from the Makeup Master- it doesn’t matter how long you bake it, 20-30 seconds should be sufficient!
5. Use Tea Tree oil to clean your brushes.
Mario said that to clean his brushes, he washes them with baby shampoo and adds a few drops of Tea Tree oil as a disinfectant. I still haven’t tried this yet but I need to immediately because my brushes NEED it!
