Today wearing makeup has become part and parcel of men. Statistics reveal that in 2020 the men’s grooming and beauty industry recorded a whopping $49billion increase, a quadruple rise from 2015’s income.
Although makeup in men is not something new as it was highly practiced during ancient time’s factors such as increased availability of beauty products and male makeup influencers, have highly contributed to the recent developments.
Like with women, wearing makeup in men helps boost confidence self-esteem and enhance natural features. Achieving masculinity through makeup also comes in handy for people wishing to transition to a new gender. Men also use makeup to hide some of their skin imperfections, such as acne spots, birthmarks, Vitiligo, and pimples. But, how do you wear your makeup to look more masculine? Read on and find out.
Prepare Yourself for the Masculinity Look
The first step to looking more masculine with makeup is to prepare yourself for it. There are a number of things you must accomplish prior to applying makeup, as discussed below.
Get the Right Concealer
Not every concealer is right for a man. Your facial size, tone, and shape are different from that of women and thus need different types of concealers from those applied by your female counterparts. Therefore don’t go applying your wife’s concealer and expect to look masculine. Instead, take your time and get a concealer that will give you the masculine appearance you need.
A concealer will help in covering up some of your most visible skin blemishes, such as the dark circles underneath your eyes, birthmarks, wrinkles, or the large pimples on your forehead. When choosing a concealer to use on your face, ensure to pick a shade that’s as close as possible to your natural skin color.
Also, ensure to choose a concealer that intermarries with your skin type. If you, for instance, have oily skin, you should opt for a matte concealer to help in absorbing the excess oil. If your skin is the dry type, a hydrating concealer will help in keeping it well moisturized and smooth.
Some of the best concealers for men to consider include Phyto-Cernes Éclat eye concealer, Tom Ford Concealer for Men, Clinique Airbrush concealer, Make Up For Ever Ultra HD Self-Setting concealer, and NARS Soft Matte Concealer.
Prepare Your Skin for the Makeup
For the makeup to respond swiftly and give you a masculine look you need, you must first prepare your skin for it. The best way to do this is to have clean and well-moisturized skin. A well-moisturized skin will be able to blend correctly with the makeup giving you a look you desire.
As you moisturize your skin, take a keen interest in the hidden areas such as underneath your eyes, behind your ears, and below your chin.
Preparing your face for the makeup will require that you wash it with a gentle, non-comedogenic cleanser to help in evening out the skin tone. You can also exfoliate twice a week to remove the dead skin cells and follow up with a serum and moisturizer to keep the skin hydrated.
Lastly, apply a primer to set a base for the makeup application. A primer helps keep your skin glowing by preventing the mixing up of the moisturizer and other skin oils with your makeup. It also fills in any fine lines on your skin, preventing the makeup from creasing in them, and this gives a smooth and flawless look.
As you choose these products to use on your face, ensure they are all non-comedogenic, non-oily, non-greasy, and paraben-free to prevent breakouts.
Eat Well
There is more to masculinity than just makeup. Eating a well-balanced diet is one of the best ways to achieve the best masculine look with little makeup. A diet containing enough nutrients plus enough water will leave you with glowing skin and increased muscle mass.
How to Look More Masculine With Makeup
The next task after preparing for makeup is to properly apply it for a masculine look. To achieve this, you must follow the following steps.
Use a Balm to Prep Your Face for Makeup
As a man, chances are you do not want to go shouting to everyone that you have makeup on. For this reason, you should opt for a balm to use in prepping your face for makeup instead of a foundation. You can easily hide some of your skin’s discolorations and imperfections using a beauty balm.
All you need to do is use your index finger to apply dots of the beauty balm in all the uneven and discolored areas of your face. Next, blend the lip balm using a fluff brush or your fingertips till it becomes naturally locked into your skin. This action should leave your face smooth and wrinkle-free.
Use a Concealer to Hide Any Remaining Wrinkles or Spots
In most cases, the lip balm will not get rid of all the imperfections on your face. To completely get rid of the remaining spots, you can use a concealer of your choice. For best results, ensure to target acne and dark circles prone areas such as the forehead, the under-eye area, and the chin.
Most concealers will come with a wand that you can use to get it evenly into your skin. Alternatively, you can use your fingers to blend the concealer into your skin. Your fingers naturally have heat and oil that help in melting the product, making it easy to blend with your skin. With this action, you can be assured of a smooth and flawless face.
Apply Some Makeup Powder to Minimize the Shine on Your Face
No man wants a shiny face after makeup. To minimize this and make your face appear more natural, ponder it with some makeup powder. You can easily use a fluffy brush to blend the powder with the foundation for more natural and flawless skin.
As you choose a makeup powder, ensure to settle on one that closely matches your natural skin tone.
Use Makeup to Create a Masculine Face
Unlike women who have oval and less blocky faces, men naturally have angular and more prominent faces with smaller eyes, larger noses, more pronounced brow bone, jawline, and less pronounced lips. You can use makeup to make your facial features more protruding and manly.
This will require that you use a concealer to contour the different parts of your face as follows.
The Lips
Men naturally have narrower, less pigmented, and pronounced lips. You can easily achieve this look by using different makeup products such as natural lipstick, lip balm, and lip liner. The first step to achieving a more masculine look on your lips is to use a lip balm to moisturize them to avoid cracking.
The next step in making your lips less pronounced is working on the cupid bow and the bottom lip. To achieve a masculine look, the cupid bow, which is the double curve of the upper lip, needs to be straighter and less emphasized, while the bottom lip needs to be a little bigger than the top lip to make your lips appear smaller.
You can reshape these two features of your lips using a lip liner and the natural lipstick of your choice. When choosing the products to use on your lips, ensure to settle on dull colors for a manlier look.
Work on your eyebrows
Your eyebrows are the greatest determinant of how masculine you will look with makeup. As you are aware, men’s eyebrows tend to be bushier, more straightened, out of shape, and closer to the eyes than those of women.
You can achieve a masculine look on your eyebrows using different makeup products such as mascara, brow gel, eyebrow pencil, powder, and eyeliner. When choosing the products to use on your eyes, ensure to settle on shades that are close to your natural brow color.
Using a mascara or eyebrow pencil, gently draw in your brow hairs to make them straight and less arched. Also, use the mascara to create the illusion of ‘little growing in’ hairs. Unlike women who tweeze and shape their brows, often men mostly have messier eyebrows. You can easily use makeup to achieve this look.
Also, use a contour to bring the eyebrows closer to the eyes for a more masculine look. When choosing an eyebrow powder, pay special attention to your facial hairs. You can use eyebrow powder to make your facial hairs look thicker and scruffier. Therefore, ensure to choose a brow powder that matches not only your natural eyebrow color but also that of your facial hair.
Make Your Eyes Smaller
Men naturally have smaller eyes. For you to look more masculine in makeup, you need to make your eyes appear smaller and deeper in the face. You can do this by applying a lighter concealer underneath your eyes and gently blending it in with your skin. Next, apply subtle eyeliner at your lash line to make your eyes more defined and masculine.
Elongate Your Nose
One of the differentiating characteristics between men and women is the shape and size of their noses. Men tend to have larger and more prominent noses. For this reason, you must pay extra attention when applying makeup around this area to achieve a more masculine look.
For your nose to be more prominent and masculine, you need to use a darker highlighter to shade around it. Also, ensure to shade on both sides of the nose, under its tip, and at each side of your nostrils. As you may have noticed, these areas always seem darker on men’s faces. This emanates from the fact that men mostly do not wear foundations and will thus always have these areas darker.
Also, ensure to contour your fore brows to make them more prominent and masculine. The Fore brow is the area connecting your nose with your brow bone, and it is more elongated in men.
Add an Artificial Adam’s Apple.
Adam apple is one feature that distinguishes between men and women. One of the best ways to look more masculine with makeup is to add an artificial Adam’s apple to your throat. To locate the exact location of this feature, place your figures on your throat and gently pretend to swallow something; you will feel a slight bump on the spot where your Adam apple ought to be.
To add an artificial Adam’s apple at this spot, contour the area with the same color shade as used in the other parts of your face and blend it in using your fingers or makeup brush.
Work On Your Temple and Brow Bone
Men generally have a rounded skull that brings the temple and hairline closer to the brow bone. The temple is also smaller than that of females. Men’s brow bone is also a bit raised, more prominent, and closer to the eyebrows than that of a woman.
To make your temple and brow bone masculine apply a concealer on the upper part of your face slightly above the forehead and blend it into your skin using the tip of your index figure.
Work on Your Jawline and Chin
Men have squared jawline area and widened chin. To achieve a squared jawline area, use your concealer to draw in a dark straight line underneath your cheekbone and gently blend it towards your jawline using a makeup brush or your fingertips. You can locate your cheekbone by sucking in your cheeks first and slowly drawing the straight line.
Next, draw a second line tracing your chin and along the bottom edge of the jawline. This will widen your chin and make it more pronounced, as is the case with most males.
Add-In Some Facial Hair
Facial hair is one of the perfect ways to look more masculine in makeup. Unlike women, men have hairy faces containing sideburns and beards. To achieve a more masculine look with makeup, you can add artificial sideburns and beards on your face by either contouring it with eyebrow powder or mascara or adding fake mustaches.
Whatever you choose to do to add artificial facial hair, ensure to use a shade color that’s close to your natural hair color. Also, ensure to trim your fake mustaches to shape and add a little powder over them for a more natural look.
Additional Tips to Help You Look More Masculine with Makeup
In addition to choosing the right concealer and contouring your facial features, the following tips will come in handy in helping you achieve a more masculine look with makeup.
Get a Masculine Haircut or Cap
It will not make sense to do all the masculine facial features contouring and follow it up with a feminine hairstyle. The truth is this will leave you more confused and out of fashion. To complete your masculine look, get an up-to-date haircut or wear a cap if you will need the look temporarily.
Some quality hairstyles such as the slicked back, undercut, classic taper, and buzz cut will leave you looking all masculine and handsome.
Wear Masculine Befitting Clothes
Now that you have transformed yourself into a man using makeup, it’s only fair that you follow it up with a bunch of masculine clothes. Today there are a lot of options to choose from thanks to the revolving fashion industry and modernization.
You can opt to wear anything from baggy pants, loose-fitting shirts, oversized layers, or canvas sneakers. Whatever you decide to wear, ensure to go for neutral or male likened colors such as black, blue, and other dark colors for a more masculine look.
Put On Confidence
Men are naturally expected to be bold and courageous. One of the main reasons why people wear makeup is to improve their confidence and self-esteem. To complete your masculine look with makeup ensures to put on confidence and walk majestically like the man you’ve become.
Follow It Up with a Male Deodorant
Deodorants are known to help improve confidence in men. You can complete your masculine makeup by applying a male deodorant to help boost confidence and leave you feeling fresh the whole day.
Act Like A Man
It will be weird for you to behave like a woman when in male makeup. To look more masculine in makeup, you will need to talk and walk upright and do your things like a real man.
Makeup Tutorial Video
Conclusion
Achieving a masculine look with makeup isn’t impossible, and it doesn’t have to be complicated. All you need to do is get the right tools and concealer and use them correctly to highlight the masculine features of your face. If you follow the above tips, you can be assured of a flawless and more masculine look with makeup.
Also, do always remember that less is excellent for makeup. Therefore ensure to use little product and spread it outwards to avoid clogging your pores. Take action to carefully remove the makeup and cleanse your face before getting to bed to avoid breakouts.
Lastly, ensure to keep your skin moisturized and stick to your regular skincare routine. It takes effort and commitment to achieve flawless skin with makeup. If you do not take care of your skin, it will never give you the desired results, no matter how expensive your makeup products are or how much of the product you apply.
