Makeup Lessons To Learn From Kate Middleton

Here’s how to copy the Duchess of Cambridge’s makeup.

The Duchess of Cambridge is undoubtedly a style icon, with a fashion frenzy erupting every time she steps out in a fresh outfit or new hairstyle.

However, one aspect of Kate’s appearance that doesn’t often change is her makeup. In fact, in recent years, the Duchess has evidently struck a winning formula with her face, and doesn’t tend to vary her look very often.

Happily for Kate fans, the makeup style she favours is universally flattering – so how do we copy it?

Here are our top tips…

FOUNDATION

If you have good skin like Kate’s you don’t need to pile on full-coverage foundation – and in fact, even if you do have problem areas, it’s much better to simply build up foundation or concealer in certain spots, rather than paint on a thick, mask-like layer across your whole face.

The Duchess’s foundation is very natural and a great match to her natural skin tone – a good way to find your exact colour match is to test the foundation on your jawline in daylight, making sure it blends well with both your face and neck.

If in doubt, ask for a sample before buying – you don’t want to spend your hard-earned cash on anything that will sit unused in the back of your bathroom cabinet!

BLUSHER

Kate always wears blusher – it highlights her amazing cheekbones and gives her a lovely, rosy glow.

Even if you don’t have killer cheekbones, blusher should be part of your beauty arsenal. Like Kate, use it to highlight the apples of your cheeks (you can find these by smiling), before sweeping gently upwards along the cheekbones towards your ears.

The Duchess tends to stick to a peachy shade (we love NARS Blush in Orgasm, ), although occasionally she goes for a soft pink, like the one above,bwe love MAC Powder Blush.

EYES

The Duchess likes to make her eyes the focal point of every makeup look, although in recent years she’s ditched the heavy under-eye eyeliner she used to wear in favour of something softer.

To recreate her eye makeup, you first need to sweep a neutral eyeshadow across the whole lid, right up to the brow – this will make the darker colours you’re about to add easier to blend.

Next take a pale brown or taupe colour and, using an eyeshadow brush, apply to the lid and smudge around the crease of your eye. The key here is to blend, blend, blend, so there’s no stark line where the colour begins and ends.

Next up, take a grey eyeshadow (or darker brown if you prefer) and use this for the eyelid itself. By now you should be building up a lovely smoky eye.

The final elements of Kate’s eye makeup are black liner along the upper lashes – which you can flick out to the sides – and black mascara, which should pull the whole look together.

Occasionally the Duchess also lines her lower lashes, but unlike the solid black liner she used to wear, she’ll now smudge this so it sits more softly on the face, which is altogether easier to pull off!

There are plenty of eyeshadow palettes to help you get Kate’s look – try the Urban Decay Naked Palette, which features a great range of brown and grey shades.

In terms of eyeliner, Rimmel Exaggerate Liquid Eyeliner, comes with a brush sturdy enough for easy application, and you can’t go wrong with Max Factor’s False Lash Effect Mascara, which gives mega-watt lashes with just a couple of swipes.

LIPS

The Duchess steers clear of bold lip shades, which means she avoids any embarrassing lipsticks smears or colour on her teeth while constantly being snapped by photographers.

To look immediately put together without too much maintenance, follow her lead and opt for natural-coloured shades, which happen to be a big trend at the moment.

As a rule of thumb, try to find a colour that’s similar to your natural lip colour, but more vivid, and determine whether you’ll suit a warm or cool shade more based on whether you’re more suited to gold jewellery (warm) or silver (cool).

And voila - you have your Kate look!