Step-by-Step Guide to Applying Asian Makeup

The first step for Asian women applying Asian makeup tips is to find a concealer and foundation with a yellow base. You might have to search harder than most women to find the perfect base, because traditional cosmetics are orange or pink-based, which will make your skin look ashy and unnatural.

Asian woman and cherry blossomsUse liquid eyeliner on your bottom and top lashes to frame your beautifully-tilted eyes. Eyeliner with a tint of blue, green, or red will draw attention to your eyes and lighten them a little visually.

Darken and fill in your eyebrows with a bronze-brown eyeshadow and little sweeping motions. How your eyebrows look has a huge impact on how your eyes look, and giving your eyebrows, which on Asian women are often a little sparse, a full look will really frame your eyes and draw them out to their best advantage.

If you want to create the appearance of a double eyelid, use shades of brown eyeshadow that have yellow undertones, which will create “shadows” that look natural. Try to only create a small crease, like many half-Asian girls have. It’s easy to spend half an hour trying to create a full crease, then realize the results just look really bizarre and unattractive! Focus on your strengths, not your weaknesses.

Bright and/or dark lipsticks are best avoided for most Asian girls. Instead use pale, peachy, neutral colors, especially lipsticks with a slightly blue undertone to bring out the beautiful gold in your complexion.
Blush should also be no darker than a rosy red, and applied only to the apples of the cheeks. Bronzer can be used together with rouge to give a healthy, sparkling glow.

Ideally, all of your eye shadows and eye pencils, no matter the basic color, will have underlying tones of shimmery gold. You might not think it would make a big difference, and on most girls’ faces it wouldn’t, but hints of glittery gold will really make your skin look lovely.

Asian Makeup Tips: How to Create a Glamorous Look

Many women with Asian heritages have a hard time finding good makeup products designed specifically for Asian skin, and importing cosmetics from Asian countries can cost a small fortune. After a few years of trial and error, I finally learned how to use certain colors to play up my best features, even though they weren’t specifically designed for an Asian women.

Here’s what I learned about Asian makeup tips.

Best Asian Makeup Tips

Asian women look best in medium to dark colors of any hue. Good Asian makeup color choices include ashy browns and bronze shades, which are ideal neutral colors for the eyes, and foundations and powders should have yellow bases to compliment the golden undertones in Asian skin.

Young asian woman with makeupBold, dark jewel colors look lovely against dark eyes and lashes, or you can forgo eye shadow entirely in place of jet black liquid eyeliner. If you don’t have the second eyelid crease that most other ethnicities have, you can recreate one through a thin smudge of dark, golden-under-toned brown shadow.

Just remember that most Asian girls have less actual space on their eyes to work with, so don’t do too much all at once on your eyes, or the entire effect will seem a bit fake. Most Asian girls have very even skin tones, so I recommend only liquid liner, mascara, and a little blush for a casual daytime look. Shading in an eyelid crease takes time to do well, so you probably only want to save that for special occasions.

Since Asian faces tend to be a little flatter than average, bronzers and darker foundation to create lights and shadows can add depth to your face. Light, shimmery highlights should go right under the eyebrow, and under-eye concealer should always be used to reduce the appearance of puffiness or shadows under the eyes.

If you’ve got more time to spend on makeup, adding shadows to the sides of the nose and temples, while lightening the bridge of the nose, the inner corners of the eyes, and the cheekbones, can have an immediate and dramatic affect on your appearance.

Curling your eyelashes makes a huge difference to, because most Asian’s eyelashes are fairly straight and don’t stick upward at all. Colored mascara can bring attention back to your eyes, or black mascara can create a pleasant neutral look.

Try a soft plum or reddish-pink on the apples of your cheeks on top of the bronzer. Usually, lips should be fairly subtle and not more than a little glossy. Almost all Asian women are going to want the attention to be on their lovely eyes.

Finding Makeup Products for Asian Women

Asian women are a small but growing portion of the Western World’s population, and though there are few makeup products made specifically for Asian women, most major labels run products that are ideal for Asian skin needs.

Pretty young Asian womanFirst, you need a foundation with yellow undertones in it to match your skin. This may make your skin appear more sallow than you want at first, but you can add non-yellow based color afterward to liven up your skin tone. However, you have to match your natural coloration at the base of this so your makeup’s overall results look effortless and flawless.

Cream-based concealers and foundations provide good coverage for all skin types, though most Asian women are blessed with small pores and few wrinkles, so powder coverage is an option for those who prefer it. Sweeps of a lighter, highlighting color should be used to give your face some more dimension.

Next, define your brows. Whereas black, Caucasion, and Middle Eastern women often struggle to tame eyebrows that are too thick and bushy, many Asian women have sparse eyebrows that instead need to be filled in. It’s not necessary to shape them into harsh arches, but take a dark brown eyeshadow and use gentle brush strokes to fill in sparse patches. You also might want to tweeze outliers to form more of a distinct shape to your eyebrows.

Eyeliner is an Asian girl’s best friend, because many Asian women don’t have the second eye crease or a lot of space between the eyelid and eyebrow to experiment with colors. Dark, winged lines on the upper lid, and sharp, thin lines on the lower lid draw attention to your lovely, dark eyes. A thin, dark brown eyeshadow line smudged into your crease, or where your crease would be, will make your eyes seem a lot fuller and bold.

Bronzer is great for a subtle, healthy glow on the face, and cherry red is a great color for the apples of the cheeks. Try to avoid yellow-based colors to keep your skin looking glowing. Lips are best kept subtle, with a reddish-pink tint and some lip gloss over that, if you prefer.