DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM
At Bare Escentuals, Justine Leavy wears the line's spring colors, including shimmery blues and greens on her eyelids, balanced with peachy lip gloss.
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Spring time
The rainbow hues of the season's fashions are reflected on eyes, lips and cheeks
The face is the canvas for color this spring as makeup artists have taken the season's fashion palette and compressed its rainbow of hues into compacts and lipstick cases to bring out your inner artist.
Leading the color revolution are the sunny yellows, juicy tangeries, forest greens, hot pinks and vivid magentas that fill retailers' clothing racks this season, joined by graphic prints and florals. Translated into makeup, the colors are available in mineral, liquid and gloss form, ready to apply in sheer washes or saturated layers of sheer color.
Several national makeup artists in town for last week's Ala Moana Center Shop A Le'a events, had similar color stories to tell, and all were adamant in saying that the look starts with the condition of your skin.
"At Bare Escentuals, our focus will always be about the complexion," said National Makeup Artist Bravon Pascua, who was in town to celebrate the opening of the company's free-standing boutique at Ala Moana Center. It's like building a house. You need a strong foundation to get the perfect house."
COURTESY PHOTO
Bare Escentuals, on the third level of the new wing at Ala Moana, gathers the colors of spring in a handy kit.
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"We're seeing more dewy, natural-looking skin," said Thuy Pham, National Makeup Artist for Dior, where spring welcomes bright orange, coral and pastel hues that are "young, but polished with a lot of jewel tones that go hand-in-hand with women's ready-to-wear seasonal clothing."
"All Dior's cosmetics are very sheer to emphasize the look of skin. You won't see the matte look."
Pham, who works with many celebrities and at fashion shows around the world, said that high-definition television is a factor in the new cosmetics. "With the new technology, pictures show everything, so you won't want to see powder settling into creases."
And she suggest getting acclimated to the new reality now.
"The demand for lighter makeup is so great that companies won't make the old foundations anymore," she said.
COURTESY AVEDA
To get this look from Aveda, liquid foundation and concealer are applied only where needed. Sweep a wash of Inner Light Shimmer Accent in "Moonstone" on eyelids. Color lips with Nourish-Mint Smoothing "Poppy" lipstick.
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Rudy Miles, Global Makeup Artist for Aveda, said the company's focus is on a subtle, sophisticated approach to eye color that looks like "a nice touch of watercolor with a hint of texture" in the form of a pearlescent sparkle.
The soft-looking eye draws focus on the lips, which can carry off extremes from a strong, shiny look to a soft peach tone.
The look embraces fashion's return to elegance and femininity. "It's young, but also sophisticated. It's not as playful as it's been in some seasons," he said.
He said it was wonderful to be in Honolulu, where spring is in full swing and he's seen many women already wearing the new colors. In New York, where he's based, cold weather means women are still wearing winter's dark eye.
He added that different tools can vary the results when used with certain products. He prefers using a complexion brush for subtle spot application of liquid foundation, rather than aiming for all-over coverage with a sponge.
"When you use a sponge, it can be cakey and dry-looking. What you want is luminous-looking skin that still looks and feels like skin."
Over at Bare Escentuals, Pascua was staging one of the company's "Make Under" events, modifying the idea of the makeover to emphasize that less can be more when makeup is so invisible that others who see you may think they are looking at your own flawless complexion.
Bare Escentuals has made it easy for women to adopt spring's new palette, with a handy $34 five-piece color kit, "Face Fashion--The Look of Now."
The kit comprises two Bare Minerals eye shadows in subdued blue and metallic green which help to highlight a rosy cheek, using a perky pink called "Cheerful," "which gives the look of health and vibrancy," said Pascua.
His favorite element of the kit is a French Navy liner shadow which can be applied wet or dry to make it easy to create a sexy, smokey-looking eye. The finishing touch is Buxom "Bunny" lipgloss, which plumps the lips while giving them a sheer wash of peachy color.
The colors come just in time for Easter.