6 Makeup Tips From a Hawai‘i Expert to Up Your Beauty Game

Professional makeup artist Jonathan Freitas will be at HONOLULU Fashion Week making models even more beautiful, and he can do the same for you.

November 17, 2015

Michael Keany,

HONOLULU Fashion Week is almost here, and local makeup guru Jonathan Freitas is about to be very busy. He’s doing the show makeup for all the runway models, and he’s also going to be giving one-on-one beauty consultations to anyone who stops by the Motives Cosmetics booth during HONOLULU Fashion Week.

You should definitely plan to get a consultation this weekend, but, to give you a head-start, we spoke with Freitas to get six tips that can up just about anyone’s beauty game:

1. Add a good primer to your makeup bag.

“A lot of women in Hawai‘i don’t put a nice primer on. It’ll make your makeup stay on longer, especially with the humidity here. Usually primer is silicon-based, and it can have a slight slip to it, but make sure it doesn’t feel greasy or oily. I’m a fan of Laura Mercier face primer, but I really love Motives Cosmetics’ new complexion-perfecting primer, because it helps to minimize the appearance of pores.”

2. Get your foundation custom-blended.

“If you don’t want to look like you’re wearing foundation, you need to match it to your skin! Whenever I speak with women, it’s the No. 1 challenge they face, that they can’t find the right foundation. It has to be the right color. I recommend our very own custom-blend foundation, which comes in both a liquid mineral and a powder form. We use an in-person consultation with a custom blend survey to determine what ingredients to add to the formula. We can add oil control, or extra hydration, to give you the exact look you want, whether it’s a Kim K. powdered-matte look or a J-Lo soft, dewy look.”

3. Fight the humidity with blotting powder.

“Hawai‘i’s humidity is a challenge; products will just start to slip on the face. A lot of women here think they have oily skin, but it’s often just too humid. What you need is a nice translucent blotting powder that you can touch up with during the day. You don’t want something that will make you look cakey. No talc. Bobbie Brown has a great translucent powder line that does the job.”

4. Treat your cheeks to some blush or bronzer.

“For local girls, a nice blush/bronzer is a must. Most women in Hawai‘i don’t put blush or bronzer on, because they think it makes their cheeks stand out. But what it really does is, by adding a soft touch of color, it adds balance between the eyes and lips. It can actually make your face appear thinner when applied correctly. My favorite bronzer is Motives Cosmetics’ Miami Glow, and my favorite blush is Nars Orgasm.”

5. When it comes to your eyelids, don’t be afraid of color.

“Hawai‘i women: Add a little color on the eye. NOT JUST BROWN. Even just a single wash of color helps make your eyes pop; just blend it right over the lid, right underneath the brow bone. You can go sheer during the daytime, and then take the look from day to evening with one or two strokes of the brush on the outer edge to add depth. I love Motives’ brand-new winter eye-shadow palette, Dynasty.”

6. Get some one-on-one advice from an expert.

“There are so many makeup tutorials on YouTube these days. One of my girls told me something classic; she said she graduated from YouTube Academy. Sometimes those videos are good, other times, not so much. They’re putting makeup on themselves, which is different from when you put it on. You might have a different facial structure, or skin tone. But when you stop by our booth, you can get direct, expert advice about which colors look best on you. It’s faster than playing trial-and-error with online makeup videos.”

HONOLULU Fashion Week happens this week, Friday, Nov. 20 through Sunday, Nov. 22 at the Hawai‘i Convention Center. To find out more, visit honolulufashionweek.com.