Today Bethany North (aka San Antonio’s best makeup artist) of Face By Bethany shows us what the pros keep in their makeup kits.
For all you beauty divas out there looking for flawless makeup application every time, it helps to stock your beauty kit like a pro.
This army of supplies will never leave you lacking. Pencils ready?
Skincare
Many pros carry their moisturizers in small plastic jars, or they look until they find smaller sample sizes of their favorite products.
“You’re going to want to have an eye makeup remover, eye cream, face moisturizer, shine control lotion, lip balm, and a body lotion.”
Foundation palette
To be a pro makeup artist, you’ll need a wide range of foundations to choose from, so get several shades of correctors, concealers, foundations in different varieties and formulas, tinted moisturizers, and loose powders.
If you’re using solid foundation sticks, you can slice off pieces of them to place in your foundation palette.
Here’s a great foundation palette choice from Amazon.
Blush
You’ll definitely want a full range of cheek colors, too, along with different varieties like powders, creams, gels, or shimmers. You can also mix in a blush with a clear lip color for a dramatic hue.
Eyes
When it comes to doing eyes, you’ll want to have a huge number of eye colors and pigments at your disposal. Make sure that you arrange each palette by shade family so that you’re not getting lost when you’re doing a makeup application, and always include cotton swabs.
Look to get a variety of eye pencils, gel eyeliners, both black AND brown mascaras, false eyelashes, eyelash glue, brow gels, brow pencils, alternate eyeliner colors, and darker shadow shades that you can use as liners.
Lips
Make sure that you always have some alternate colors with you, like black lipstick, to spice up any occasion. Look to have at least 20 different shades of lip colors in your kit, which you can mix to create even more. Include in that lip shimmers, lip glosses, and lip pencils.
“To easily carry a huge collection of lipsticks with you, simply slice pieces off and place them into the palette.”
You can learn how to make your own clever lip palette from this YouTube video, even better! 🙂
Tools
You’ll need a complete set of brushes, a spray-on brush cleaner, makeup sponges, cotton swabs, cotton pads, tweezers, an eyelash curler, disposable mascara wands, and brow trimming scissors.
For the Girl Scout in you
Here are some extras to help you always be prepared…
“Be sure to include a hand disinfectant, baby wipes, breath mints, nail polish, nail polish remover, a hand mirror, and eye drops — just to make your life that much easier!”
Did you get all that?
And make sure that you bring some Ziploc bags to store things and rubber bands to hold your lip glosses and pencils together. You can also get extra nerdy and use a label maker to make sure that all of your supplies are in clear order.
Take time to practice your applications over and over again to find what works best for you, and you’ll never be lost among your army of beauty goodies.
Good luck and Godspeed! 🙂
This post was written by Bethany North of Face by Bethany, a San Antonio makeup artist and licensed esthetician who specializes in bridal makeup. She’s loved makeup her whole life but became even more passionate about it when she started working in the skin care field. She lives with her boyfriend and five-year-old Chihuahua Frankie (who’s not very nice to strangers).
Jaime says
That sounds almost uncannily like what Bobbi Brown suggested all makeup artists carry in her most recent book “Bobbi Brown Makeup Manual.” I guess Bethany knows what she’s doing, too!
Solé says
I love lists! Especially this one! I’m not a trained professional but my friends and relatives always ask me to do their makeup for weddings and other big events. I have most of these items but I usually have them bring along their own foundations and mascara. Since I don’t do it for a living, I don’t think I could justify buying a foundation in every shade under the sun – although I sure would love to. 🙂
Jaimie says
Yep, I need all this in more in my makeup kit! You can NEVER be too prepared. Lugging it all is SUCH a hassle tho!
Jaimie´s last blog post..How I De-tube and Melt My Lipsticks
Kristine says
Awesome article!
I like to keep my lip colors in these tiny plastic containers ( I think they are for holding paints) that I got at Michael’s. As soon as I get a new lipstick I dig it all out and smoosh it into one of those. They are loose but it works for me because I keep everything sorted in a plastic case with dividers.
Denisa says
Thanks for this article! This was very informational!
Melissa Street says
I love this post! Great tips!!!!
Melissa Street´s last blog post..Teen Queen!
CC says
Man, I wish there were blogs like this when I threw away too many cases of pressed powder and eyeshadow ages ago!
Bailey says
I love the idea of a foundation palette… makes you feel like an artist!