Looking to update to an everyday summer makeup look?
The makeup technique called strobing, or highlighting, is a popular look this year to give women’s skin a summer glow without using too much contouring product.
Cosmetologist Julia Barrow, from Studio 1030 on the BYU campus, showed how to apply strobing into one’s daily makeup routine. Here are the steps she gives to create the strobing look:
1. Apply face and eye makeup
Start by applying the desired face and eye makeup. While strobing can be applied to a full face of makeup, Barrow recommended used strobing as an alternative to foundation in the summertime.
“It’s hot, and makeup is melting off of your face anyway,” she said. “It is an alternative to help brighten you up in the summer without wearing a full face.”
2. Choose a highlighter
For the strobing technique, one should choose a highlighter based on the desired look and one’s skin tone.
According to Barrow, most highlighters have a slight rose-colored tone, which will work for the majority of skin tones. She said that those with an olive skin tone can use a rosy peach or tan-colored highlighter. Barrow said to avoid white highlighters, because the white causes a large contrast with skin tone.
“When you do strobing, you can either use a liquid or a powder highlighter,” Barrow said. “If you are already wearing a full face of makeup you will want to use powder, but if you have less product on it is easier to blend a liquid highlighter.”
3. Where to highlight
Once a highlighter is chosen, it is time to apply highlighter to a couple of specific areas on the face.
The places to highlight when strobing are the tip of the nose, the top of the lip (also called the cupid’s bow), the inner corner of eyes, right below the eyebrow arch and the highest point of the cheeks.
Barrow’s tip for finding where on the cheeks to place the highlighter is to suck the cheeks in, in other words, make a fish face. “This also helps you to see the angle your cheekbones lay,” Barrow said.
Highlighter should be applied to the highest point of the cheeks along the angle of the cheekbones. Barrow said to apply highlighter almost to the temple, but not all the way.
Be careful not to use too much highlighter!
“With most highlighters a little goes a long way, so you only need a teeny bit,” Barrow said. “So start with a little, and you can always apply more.”
4. Blend the highlighter in
Use a brush or a finger to blend in the highlighter.
“Go in a circular motion until it is blended in,” Barrow said. “You want to blend until you only see a little brightness, but you don’t want to see any shimmer.”
Barrow said it is easiest to blend using fingers on the cheeks. Her advice for blending the tip of the nose is to blend really well, keep the highlighter strictly on the tip of the nose.
Barrow prefers to apply double highlighter to the inside corner of the eye to create a more dramatic look. Barrow said to pull the highlighter out from the corner along the sides of the eye and create a V shape.
“You want to be careful to not bring the inner corner highlighter down too much, or it will highlight under your eye and bring more attention to dark circles if you have any,” Barrow said. “You want to keep it just level with your eye corner rather than bring it down.”
Once one is finished with the blending stage, the look is nearly complete.
5. Finish the look
Barrow offered some final advice from for finalizing the strobing look.
“If you go overboard with your highlighter, put some makeup remover on a cotton swab and remove the extra so you can blend it in really well,” she said.
The look should be subtle, but noticeable enough to highlight and accentuate one’s features.
The last step for a complete strobing look is the lips. Make sure the lips match the rest of the makeup look. A red lip might be more dramatic than the makeup on the rest of the face.
“I like to finish this look with a nude or pink lip gloss,” Barrow said.
