Cherisse Moe

It’s grad­u­a­tion sea­son, and the scram­ble is of­fi­cial­ly on. That means gowns, suits, shoes, and make­up! Ladies, to­day, we’re deal­ing with the lat­ter.

Be­tween flash pho­tog­ra­phy, evening heat, and those in­evitable emo­tion­al mo­ments, your make­up has its work cut out. So We Life & Cul­ture spoke with two of the beau­ty in­dus­try’s top pro­fes­sion­als. In the chair are Gillian Charles, pro­fes­sion­al make­up artist, beau­ty en­tre­pre­neur, and ed­u­ca­tor with over 13 years of ex­pe­ri­ence. She has worked on the faces of so­ca singers Na­dia Bat­son, Patrice Roberts, and Nailah Black­man, chut­ney-so­ca artiste Sal­ly Sagram, and Ja­maican dance­hall en­ter­tain­er Hood­celebri­tyy. Join­ing her is In­ter­na­tion­al make­up artist and beau­ty cre­ator Jaleesa Jaikaran, who’s Trinidad-born and US-based. She’s known for paint­ing the faces of celebri­ties like Amer­i­can singer Cassie and South Su­danese-Aus­tralian fash­ion mod­el Duck­ie Thot, while al­so work­ing with ma­jor fash­ion pow­er­hous­es such as Coach, Essence, and Vogue Italia.

Nat­ur­al, Soft, or Full Glam?

To get your de­sired look, you must first de­cide on your over­all style. Ac­cord­ing to Gillian, the op­tions gen­er­al­ly fall in­to three cat­e­gories:

• Nat­ur­al glam — Light­weight, skin-like with sub­tle con­tour and glow.

• Soft glam — Neu­tral eye­shad­ow, soft lash­es, flaw­less skin, and se­mi-nude lips (her most re­quest­ed).

• Full glam — For the girlies who love the dra­ma, with stronger eyes and con­tour while keep­ing skin fresh and el­e­gant for pho­tos.

Gillian stress­es that grad­u­a­tion make­up must suit your fea­tures, com­ple­ment your gown and hair­style, and en­sure you “still look like you years lat­er.”

Jaleesa is see­ing a clear pref­er­ence for a clean­er fin­ish this sea­son with a lit­tle per­son­al­i­ty. “One of the biggest grad make­up trends right now is def­i­nite­ly el­e­vat­ed soft glam,” she says. “Blue is huge—soft and dif­fused or on the brighter end. I’m al­so see­ing this in a lot of mono­chro­mat­ic tones like soft pinks, berries paired with fluffy lash­es that en­hance the look. For the eyes, lots of eye shim­mers and fine­ly milled glit­ters, whether it’s a wash over the eyes or in eye­lin­er form. I love that there’s a lot of self-ex­pres­sion.”

Blend­ing the ‘Now’

with the ‘For­ev­er’

Both artists agree on the gold­en rule: look fresh and cur­rent to­day, but com­plete­ly time­less when you look back at these pho­tos in the fu­ture.

“The key is mod­er­a­tion,” Gillian ad­vis­es. “I al­ways try to in­cor­po­rate mod­ern tech­niques while still cus­tomis­ing the look to their face and com­fort lev­el. For ex­am­ple, gems to the eyes al­ways add a lit­tle raz­zle to any look, how­ev­er, place­ment will be based on fa­cial struc­ture.” Jaleesa be­lieves the goal is to feel cur­rent and con­fi­dent, while keep­ing the make­up age ap­pro­pri­ate. Heavy con­tour, over­ly bright un­der eyes or dra­mat­ic “bak­ing” aren’t need­ed to look pol­ished, she as­sures. “Fresh skin, soft­ly de­fined eyes, blush place­ment that lifts the face, and lash­es that en­hance rather than over­pow­er pho­to­graph beau­ti­ful­ly on younger skin. I like to call it “snatchur­al”—a com­bi­na­tion of look­ing snatched yet nat­ur­al. Youth­ful skin al­ready has so much nat­ur­al beau­ty; make­up should com­ple­ment that in­stead of mask­ing it.”

Skin prep and mis­takes to avoid

The se­cret to a smooth ap­pli­ca­tion starts days be­fore. Gillian’s non-ne­go­tiables are:

• Hy­drate Prop­er­ly: Drink enough wa­ter in the days lead­ing up to grad­u­a­tion. Hy­drat­ed skin helps make­up sit more smooth­ly and pre­vents dry or patchy ar­eas.

• Avoid New Prod­ucts at the Last Minute: Do not ex­per­i­ment with new make­up or skin­care.

• Ex­fo­li­ate: Use a gen­tle ex­fo­lia­tor two to three days pri­or to re­move dead skin buildup and cre­ate a smoother base.

• Mois­turise Con­sis­tent­ly: This helps foun­da­tion blend seam­less­ly and pre­vents cak­i­ness, es­pe­cial­ly around the mouth and un­der-eye area.

• Get Enough Sleep: Lack of it can lead to puffi­ness, dull skin, and dark cir­cles, which can af­fect how make­up pho­tographs.

• Sched­ule Oth­er Beau­ty Ser­vices Ear­ly: Fa­cials, wax­ing, brows, lash ap­point­ments, and hair ser­vices should ide­al­ly be done sev­er­al days ahead of time. Just in case ir­ri­ta­tion oc­curs or does not turn out as planned.

• Book a Tri­al: If pos­si­ble, do a make­up tri­al be­fore­hand. Car­ry pic­tures to show what you want. This helps both the client and MUA de­ter­mine the most ap­pro­pri­ate look for the day with­out the pres­sures of time.

On the day it­self, Jaleesa warns against the biggest trap: do­ing too much. “Con­sid­er flash pho­tog­ra­phy or wear time like too much SPF caus­ing flash­back, lash­es that are too heavy, or skip­ping prop­er seal­ing,” she notes. “I al­so al­ways tell stu­dents to think prac­ti­cal­ly: you’ll like­ly be tak­ing pho­tos all day, hug­ging peo­ple, pos­si­bly sweat­ing, cry­ing, and wear­ing a cap, so longevi­ty mat­ters.”

Book ear­ly

Grad­u­a­tion sea­son re­quires tight sched­ul­ing. Gillian’s Cou­va stu­dio sees clients trav­el­ling from as far as Rio Claro, To­co, and Paramin, with some days booked sol­id at six faces and up to 100 over the pe­ri­od.

For the best re­sults, gath­er your ref­er­ence pho­tos, se­cure your coins and your slot ear­ly. Af­ter all, this is a once-in-a-life­time mo­ment—you de­serve to look and feel like a mil­lion bucks!