One of the most common concerns I hear from brides is:
“But will my makeup actually last all day?”
The short answer is: yes, it should.
Professionally applied bridal makeup is designed for a very different job from your everyday makeup. It may be going on at 8am and still needs to look good through a ceremony, photographs, hugs, kisses, dinner, champagne, tears and several hours on the dance floor.
That doesn’t mean your face needs to be covered in industrial-strength foundation.
In fact, long-lasting bridal makeup isn’t really about putting more makeup on.
It’s about how it’s prepared, applied, layered and set.
And after doing weddings for 16 years, I can tell you that the last thing I want is for you to spend your wedding day checking your face in every available mirror.
It starts before the foundation goes on
Good makeup starts with good skin preparation.
Exactly what we do depends on your skin. Dry, oily and mature skin all behave differently, so there isn’t one preparation routine that I automatically use on everybody.
If necessary, we might lightly exfoliate before applying moisturiser and giving it time to properly absorb into the skin.
One thing I don’t want is lots of heavy skincare sitting on the surface when we’re ready to begin.
More isn’t necessarily better.
Too much moisturiser, facial oil or another product that leaves a residue can make it harder for makeup to sit properly on the skin. If you’ve done your normal skincare that morning, that’s absolutely fine — we can assess your skin when you sit down and add or remove what we need.
This is also why I often suggest putting your moisturiser on earlier in the morning rather than immediately before you sit in the makeup chair.
The aim is beautifully prepared skin, not slippery skin.
If you’re wondering what to do in the weeks beforehand, I’ve also written a full guide to preparing your skin for your wedding.
Do you need primer for wedding makeup?
Possibly. But not necessarily.
Primer has become one of those products we’re almost conditioned to think everybody needs.
I don’t automatically use it.
Sometimes adding another product simply gives us another layer for everything else to sit on, and if the skin doesn’t need it, I don’t see the point.
There are occasions when primer is extremely useful. If somebody has enlarged pores, for example, I may use a smoothing primer in those areas to create a more even surface.
There are also illuminating primers that can give dull skin a little lift.
But I’m cautious with anything very glowy underneath the entire face. Something that looks beautifully luminous at 9am can become rather shiny once natural oils and a warm wedding day enter the equation.
I’d often rather add luminosity afterwards, exactly where I want it.
Long-lasting makeup is built in layers
The easiest way I can explain this is to think about building a house.
You don’t chuck all the bricks into a pile and hope they stay standing.
You build it properly, layer by layer.
Bridal makeup is a little like that.
I might begin with a lightweight tinted moisturiser or base. Then I’ll add more coverage only where it’s needed rather than automatically putting a heavy foundation across the entire face.
That base can then be carefully set.
We might use a cream or gel blush and lightly set that, or choose a powder product that becomes another layer in itself.
Different products and textures work together to create the finished result.
It’s one of the reasons professional makeup can feel as though I’m applying quite a few things while still looking surprisingly natural when I’ve finished.
Longevity doesn’t have to mean heaviness.
Powder is important – but I don’t want to flatten your entire face
Powder is one of our most useful tools for longevity.
I’m particularly careful underneath the eyes. The skin there is thin, it moves constantly and we often need concealer to correct darkness, so it’s an area where product can collect and crease if we’re not careful.
The T-zone is another area I’m likely to set well because that’s where many of us naturally become shiny.
But I don’t necessarily want to powder every inch of your face into submission.
Leaving areas such as the cheekbones fresher can allow some natural warmth and luminosity to remain in the skin.
The objective is controlled glow, not a completely matte face.
Is setting spray essential?
I love setting spray.
But, like primer, I don’t blindly put it on everybody.
I’ll look at your skin, the products we’ve used and the weather.
If your skin is already particularly oily or we’re dealing with a very hot day, I may decide that it isn’t what your skin needs.
Professional makeup isn’t about following the same recipe for every bride. It’s knowing which bits of the recipe this particular face needs.
What about your eye makeup?
There are several little things we can do to improve longevity around the eyes.
An appropriate eye primer can help prevent shadow from creasing, although again, we don’t want to overload the eyelid with product.
For longevity, I’ll generally be more cautious with very creamy or waxy products that are more prone to movement. If I use a pencil liner, I can set it with a corresponding powder shadow to help keep it in place.
And waterproof mascara is pretty much a wedding-day non-negotiable.
For obvious reasons.
Will wedding makeup survive crying?
A few tears? Absolutely.
A full eye-rubbing, mascara-smearing meltdown? We’re makeup artists, not magicians.
The important thing is dab, don’t wipe.
If your eyes are watering, gently catch the moisture rather than rubbing backwards and forwards underneath them.
A cotton bud is brilliant for this. You can use it to carefully collect moisture around the lash line or clean a tiny area underneath the eye without disturbing everything around it.
Waterproof products and good setting will do a great deal of the work for you.
Just don’t attack your face with a tissue.
What if it’s really hot?
Heat changes how skin and makeup behave, which is why we adapt.
I don’t want an unnecessarily heavy base sitting on your face and becoming increasingly obvious as you get warmer. Products, preparation and setting can all be adjusted for the conditions.
Once you’re out of our hands, blotting papers are one of the most useful things you can carry.
They remove excess shine without repeatedly piling more powder onto your face.
I’ve written separately about summer wedding makeup and making it last in hot weather, because there’s quite a bit more we can do when we know heat and humidity are going to be a factor.
What will actually need touching up?
Mostly?
Your lipstick.
I can do many things, but I cannot make lipstick completely impervious to champagne, lunch, dinner, talking, kissing and whatever else you’re planning on doing with your mouth for the next 12 hours.
This is why I always use lip liner, even for a very natural lip.
It doesn’t have to look like obvious liner. We can choose something very close to your natural lip colour, but it gives us a longer-lasting layer underneath the lipstick.
At your bridal makeup preview, we’ll normally establish the lip colour you’re going to wear, which gives you the opportunity to buy your own for the day.
Then you can simply reapply it when you need to.
Your base and eyes shouldn’t require constant maintenance. Depending on your skin and the weather, you might want to blot away some shine or add a very small amount of powder later.
But you absolutely should not need to disappear to the bathroom every hour and reconstruct your face.
What should be in your bridal makeup touch-up kit?
You really don’t need to carry half of Boots around in your handbag.
I’d keep it very simple:
- Your lipstick or chosen lip product
- Blotting papers and, if appropriate, a little powder
- A few cotton buds
That’s pretty much it.
If you want to add a balm or gloss for later in the evening, lovely.
But this isn’t a military operation.
Please drink the champagne
Yes, drinking through a straw can help preserve lipstick.
But are you honestly going to stand at your wedding drinking a beautiful glass of champagne through a straw because you’re worried about your lip colour?
I hope not.
Eat. Drink. Kiss people. Talk. Laugh.
Your lipstick can be reapplied.
I’d much rather you lose a little lipstick because you’re having a fabulous time than preserve it perfectly because you’ve spent six hours frightened to use your mouth.
Try not to touch your face
This one does make a difference.
Repeatedly rubbing your eyes, resting your chin in your hands or touching your face can physically remove makeup and transfer the natural oils from your hands onto the skin.
There’s another rather practical reason not to do it.
If you’ve transferred makeup onto your fingers and then grab your white or ivory wedding dress, we’ve potentially got another problem to deal with.
So leave your face alone as much as reasonably possible.
Does expensive makeup last longer?
Absolutely not.
There is some incredibly expensive makeup that is, frankly, utter shit.
There. I said it.
Luxury branding and product performance are not the same thing.
Sometimes you’re paying for beautiful packaging, marketing, a designer name and the feeling that comes with owning something luxurious. And if a particular brand makes you feel fabulous, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.
But expensive does not automatically mean better.
I wrote about this in my book, #NoFilterNeeded, because the beauty industry is extraordinarily good at convincing us that price and performance are the same thing.
They’re not.
Our professional kits contain products from lots of different brands because no single makeup company makes the best version of everything.
What matters to me is whether the product works.
And when it comes to something you’ll need to buy yourself for touch-ups — lipstick being the obvious example — I’m not going to deliberately choose an eye-wateringly expensive product if I can find the right colour and performance at a sensible price.
Can you use your own makeup on your wedding day?
Of course.
If you’ve worn the same lipstick for years and it feels completely you, bring it.
We can build your look around it.
I’m a little more cautious about using somebody’s everyday foundation simply because we need to know how it’s going to perform across a very long day and how it works with the other products we’re using.
But there’s no rule saying that professional bridal makeup has to come exclusively from the makeup artist’s kit.
Your favourites can absolutely be part of it when they’re right for the job.
So, how long should bridal makeup actually last?
If your makeup is professionally applied in the morning, I would expect your base and eye makeup to still be looking good well into the evening.
Obviously, there are limits.
If you jump into a swimming pool, stand in torrential rain or dance so enthusiastically that you’re dripping with sweat, makeup is still makeup.
But under normal wedding-day conditions, professionally prepared, applied and set bridal makeup should comfortably take you from getting ready through to the evening celebrations, with very little intervention beyond your lips and perhaps managing a little shine.
Control the controllables
This is probably the most important thing.
We can’t control the weather.
We can’t control whether you cry during the vows.
We can’t control how enthusiastically your relatives are going to kiss you.
What we can control is how your skin is prepared, the products we choose, the way they’re applied, how they’re layered and how everything is set.
And that’s our job, not yours.
Between myself and the CJC team, there are many, many years of weddings behind us. We know what tends to move, what tends to crease, what works in heat, what works on different skin types, and where problems are likely to occur.
So once you get out of the makeup chair, I really don’t want you worrying about whether your foundation is still there.
Take your lipstick with you.
Try not to rub your face.
And then go and get married.
We’ll take care of the rest.
