How to Do Prom Makeup

Learn how to do prom makeup from professional makeup artist Michelle Dittrich in this Howcast makeup tutorial.


"My name is Michelle Dittrich and I'm a make-up artist. I've done make-up on a lot of celebrities, Pam Anderson, Kanye West, Lenny Kravitz, Cynthia Nixon. There's a big misconception that I could never do that look on the runway and you absolutely can. Everybody can. You'll play to your best attributes and I can show you how to do that.

So we just finished the eyes for prom make-up and now we're going to move on to how your face should look in prom. You want your skin to look pretty and flawless but not overdone and you also want it to look great in photos. Now we're going to apply a little bit of concealer or foundation. As concealer we want to keep it really light weight and to perfect Billy's skin for pictures. So, with your q-tip instead of a brush or your finger because if you are using your fingers, just make sure you wash your hands properly. You don't want to spread bacteria around. Go ahead and dab a little bit of your appropriate color as minimally as possible first and then we're just going to do a little blending and blend it with the other side of the cotton swab. Keep it simple. You have this youthful skin. Don't overdo it. You want to really utilize your best features. If your best features are your eyes, play them up. If your best feature is your skin, let it be pretty skin you know. Let it be however it is, just enhanced.

Next we're going to take away any shine on Billy's face for photo reasons, with a translucent blotting powder, preferably an oil free, matte one, nothing with shimmer in it, because we just really want to keep it simple and pretty and clean looking. So, you can use a sponge or you can use a cotton pad, that you probably have at home. I'm going to choose cotton because it's a little bit fluffier and just take a little bit to start. We're going to the t-zone. This is your t-zone here, where people tend to be most oily if they get oily.

So, we'll start right in the center and just blot it down. So applying the powder first and then we'll take the other side of the cotton swab to blend it in. We're just making sure that the powder we applied to Billy's t-zone is well blended with the cotton pads. Then you go on the chin here, pretty and perfect.

Ok, so the next item that we're going to apply (?)is a little bit of shimmer to your cheeks which is the same shimmer that I used as the eye shadow. You can use again a cotton swab or a sponge to apply this. I like to use a sponge because it has an edge to it so that you can kind of create a little bit of a line next to your eyeliner. It's a little fun. So, we're going to just put it right on the cheekbone going up and that way we can view the pretty part of the blue liner that we did earlier. Just a little bit goes a long way and if you want, after you've put on your dress, you can put a little bit right here, by the clavicle, just to catch a little bit of light with your dress. Pretty off on your shoulders or even a tiny little bit on your legs if you want. That is optional.

And, I'm going to go back to the look that we started with as far as lips go. So right now what I'm going to do is apply a little bit more of the cream blush on to her cheeks and that will finish our prom face section. So now that we're going to apply a little more heavily, not heavy, but more heavier than the school make-up. Put some of the cream on the sponge and it can even be the same sponge that you put on the shimmer. It's ok if they mix a little bit, it can be actually very pretty and we're going to just start working it into the apples and then go back with a clean edge of your sponge and blend. So, it's actually really beautiful if it mixes with that shimmer that we just put on. It's kind of the idea to have a nice blended, shimmery glow in the photos. So that completes your face section of your prom look. Now we're going to move on to lips.

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