Seniors: Hair and Makeup

Part of the preparation for your Senior Sessions is planning what you’d like your hair and makeup to look like for your final images. You’ve got two options - hire a professional or do it yourself.

There are benefits to letting the pros handle your hair and makeup:

• They have experience with applying makeup and styling hair that will last all day

• They have quality products in all the shades you can imagine

• They know what looks best for the camera

• Their applications will be flawless and allow you to be confident and rock your session

If you are planning to conquer hair and makeup on your own, I have a few tips below for you to be glam ready. I highly recommend having another set of hands to help with the preparation process, curling those hard to reach strands in the back or giving a once over on makeup are monumental in a stress-less session.

Makeup

• Apply lip and eye makeup slightly darker than normal. If I learned anything from my years in dance as a child it’s that on picture day you need to amp up the appearance of your features for the camera to capture it.

• Following up with slightly darker makeup, is don’t add heavy layers and layers of makeup. You want to remain natural and not clumpy/flaky in your images.

• Go for a matte finish look, shiny foundation may look sumptuous day to day…but you want to minimize this glare in your portraits.

• If you don’t normally wear lipstick, I suggest applying wearing a shade that is close to your natural lip color. At a minimum, wear chapstick.

• Mascara is a must, consider wearing lash extensions as well. They are a short term addition for a long term gain.

• If you wear light shades of eye shadow you will want to amp this up to a medium tone. Back to the first point in this list, light makeup will not show up as prominent in close up pictures.

Hair

• Don’t try a new cut, style or color before your senior pictures. However, a trim or reshaping along with color touchup to existing highlights it perfect a couple weeks before your session.

• If you typically where your hair straight, give it a slight curl to frame your face and add movement.

• Don’t shy away from hairspray today, it’ll be your friend in holding down pesky stray strands of hair.

• If you hair tends to react to humidity bring product to help minimize your locks.

Most importantly, give your hair and makeup a trial run a couple of weeks before you session. This way your comfortable with styling it and know the amount of time you’ll need prior to your big day. Take a few pictures outside to be sure you love the look!