Published on September 06, 2005

Here’s good news for women who have always yearned to have that perfectly shaped face. No, there is no surgery involved, all you need is ample common sense and know a few simple mak-up techniques.

Floraine David, a professional make-up artist with Makeup Forever, flew in from England recently to give a few pointers at a Make Up Forever Cosmetics workshop. David’s portfolio includes royals like Princess Michael of Kent and model Jerry Hall among her clients. She also works for Vogue, Vanity Fair, Cosmopolitan, Tatler and Zest.

David says that the most photogenic facial shape is an oval one. To get the desired result, you highlight the points that make your face look good and use a dark shade to conceal the parts that you don’t like. A good highlighting-and-shading set something to put on top of your shopping list.

However, before turning into a budding artist, you need to carefully and honestly analyse the shape of your face.

There are six basic types, says David, and she has the following suggestions to deal with them.

If you have an oval-shaped face: Lucky you! This is the best, so there’s nothing much to do. Still, you can highlight the cheekbones by applying a blush to that area.

If you have a round-shaped face: David says this is typical of Asians. To look better, you need to highlight the centre of your forehead and cheekbones and then use a darker shade around your jaws.

If you have a triangular face (also called the heart-shaped or jewelled face): Apply highlights to your cheekbones and to the middle of your forehead. Apply a darker shade to the sides of your forehead.

If you have a square-shaped face: This is a masculine face, says David.

So what you need to do is to make your face more feminine. Highlight your chin and your forehead. Do some dark shading on the jaw and around the sides of your forehead so that the face looks rounder.

If you have a long-shaped or elongated face: You need to make your face look shorter. If you blush downwards, it will make your face even longer. So blush and highlight your cheeks, brushing it horizontally. Also highlight your forehead. Shade your jaw and chin areas so they look less long. A person with a long face will have small lips, so you must use a good lipstick and a lip-liner.

If you have a hexagonal face: This is a mix of the triangle and the square. Your forehead is typically narrow. So, highlight the upper side of your forehead and cheekbones. Use a dark shade on your cheekbones and the jaw area so that they look less wide.

The use of a blusher should also be different on different face shapes.

If you have an oval face, apply the blusher in a circular pattern to your cheekbones.

If you have a square face, apply the blusher horizontally from your hairline to your cheekbones, with colour darkest on the side of your face and getting lighter as you get towards the nose.

For the round-shaped face, the blusher should be used downwards from the hairline to the cheekbones. Use a lot of colour on your cheekbones so that a triangular shape is formed around your cheeks.

For a long-shaped face, use the same technique as for a round-shaped one.

Start around the hairline but instead of brushing it straight downwards, curve it a bit under the cheekbones.

For a triangular shape, brush horizontally, to compress the width of the area.

For a hexagonal face, apply the blusher to the cheeks, so that it looks like a half-circle with the curve of the circle right on the cheekbones.

Now that you’ve managed to conceal some of the parts you don’t like and highlight the parts you like, you could very well have the face you always wanted.

Lisnaree Vichitsorasatra

The Nation

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