Beauty essentials

Beauty essentials: 8 can’t-live-without beauty tools

What makeup tools are must-haves in one’s kit? We asked several top makeup artists to find out what they’re beauty essentials are.

If you find you do an okay job at your makeup, but it never looks as smashing as you’d like it to, could it perhaps be the tools you’re using? While it’s true that they’ve got the training and hours and hours of professional work and not to mention innate talent and skills, professional makeup artists also know what tools are essential to doing a fantastic makeup job. So we polled some of the top in the biz to find out what are their makeup-tool mainstays. 

Beauty essentials #1: Angled eye shadow brush 
We’re assuming you know well enough not to use that the spongey little applicator that comes with eye shadow palettes. But if you’ve only got a regulareye shadow brush, you need to get yourself to the makeup brush aisle for some shopping. 

Max Herlant, international makeup advisor for Yves Rocher swears by an angled eye brush for its versatility. “You can use it to apply an eye shadow the same colour as your kohl or eye pencil,” he says (this method will help it last twice as long, he adds). An angled eye brush can also be used to soften your eyebrows once you’ve filled them in. Herlant says you can also use it on your lips. “If you apply too much lipstick, you can easily correct it with an angled brush,” he says. (Just make sure to use a clean one, obviously). 

Beauty essentials #2: Shadow shields 
If wearing eye makeup is your “thing,” then you’ll want this product pronto, says Andrea Claire, a celebrity makeup artist based in Singapore. These self-adhesive crescents catch any eye shadow that trickles down underneath your eye area (“and that will age you as powder will accentuate fine lines,” says Claire). 

Beauty essentials #3: Powder brush 
While you’re picking up an angled eye brush, get yourself a powder brush, too, to add to your arsenal. Herlant uses it not only for powder but for blush, too. “For a natural, flushed look, I like to dab a bit of blush with the powder brush on the apples of the cheeks. This gives a really nice effect, more natural than applying the blush outwards from the apples of the cheeks towards the ears.”