Romantic Essence Makeup

Romantics’ best makeup feels 3D.

This is because Romantics have curvy, voluptuous features.

How to emphasize the beauty of curves? Use the opposite of flat, matte textures.

So Romantics can achieve “3D makeup” by incorporating generous shine, plus light paired with shadows.

This also makes your alluring Romantic features appear even more passionate and alive.

Romantic Style Essence Makeup

Overall Vibe

Romantic makeup is glam, elaborate, and soft yet intense.

Your best makeup will feel:

• 3D—emphasizing curves with shiny finishes, highlighter, and contour

• Glam—exuding an embellished, dressed-up feel

• Passionate—filled with wet-looking textures, plus dark colors paired with light ones. This makes the face feel sensual and alive.

Here’s some of your best specific makeup:

Eyes

Eyeshadow

Maybe Romantic’s most important step.

To match the face’s curvy shapes and passionate softness, you can pair:

• Very light-colored eyeshadow on the inner halves of the eyelids, ideally with glow, shine, or shimmer; and

• A dark matte shade toward the outer corners:

A medium transition shade can optionally be added into the crease.

You can also bring your eyeshadow above the lid and up onto the brow bone, leaving at least a little space between your eyeshadow and eyebrows.

For a subtler, more everyday look, you can choose a medium eyeshadow color for the outer thirds or halves of your eyes—or choose a dark shade but apply rather lightly:

Choose a light-colored eyeshadow for the inner halves of the eyes.

You can also concentrate the darker eyeshadow color just at the eyes’ very outer corners, blending well to achieve the more subtle side of Romantic makeup:

For a more intense version, you can make your outer eyeshadow color very dark, and the inner color very glowy, shimmery, or heavily pigmented:

You can also subtly add the darker and lighter eyeshadow colors right beneath the eye:

Use a light touch—applying heavy product beneath the eye can feel harsh.

Why This Works

Very dark, smoky eyeshadow easily feels glam.

But a thick application all over the eye area can feel flat and matte—clashing with Romantic’s curves.

The simple solution: keep the very dark, matte eyeshadow only on the outer half or third of your lids (or even only at the very outer corners).

Then, on the inner halves of the lid, use very light-colored eyeshadow, ideally with a light-reflective texture.

This ensures that the eyes feel smoky and sensual, but don’t feel so heavy or flat that they no longer match Romantic’s curvy, “3D” beauty.

Colors

As for most essences, neutral eye makeup is safest.

And it’s amazing for Romantic, easily feeling luxurious.

But Romantic’s best colors are pinks, reds, and purples, and these can also be mesmerizing.

You’ll still want to do darker on the outer halves of the eyes, and much lighter on the inner halves.

Eyeliner

Wings exude Romantic allure:

Thin, dark winged liner feels glam without appearing harsh. You can do black or your color season’s version of black. Or choose a medium neutral for a subtler look.

You can draw a moderate or long wing, though wings that feel shockingly long aren’t ideal.

Blending the wing is optional—it adds Romantic softness.

But winged liner can also mimic the look of an extra eyelash. So it’s one of your few makeup steps that doesn’t need blending.

You can also add eyeliner at the base of the upper and lower lashes, blending for a softer effect.

Mascara

Great for adding glamour:

Your best mascara will be long, fluffy, and rather full, but not so full that it feels graphic.

You can add long, fluffy mascara to your lower lashes, too. You just want to make sure it doesn’t feel bulky.

Falsies or Extensions

Optional—these easily feel ultra-glam and Romantic.

But extremely long or extremely thick falsies aren’t ideal, since they can appear blocky and theatrical (better for Dramatics).

Make sure you can still see space between the individual lashes.

Tightlining

Dark tightlining adds intensity to the eyes, suiting Romantic’s intensely passionate nature.

But tightlining can also sometimes make the eyes feel narrower, which isn’t iconically Romantic.

So this isn’t your most necessary makeup step. Some Romantics may love it, others may want to skip.

You can also compromise by tightlining only part of your eye, such as only the outer third or half of your lower waterline.

Choosing a medium neutral can also feel softer than a very dark shade.

Brows

Romantics’ best brows tend to be:

• Moderate in length

• Tapered, getting notably thinner from the beginnings to the tails

• Very curved and arched

• Thin (but not ultra-thin) or moderate

• Very well-groomed, including filling in any sparse areas

Romantics seem flattered by brows where unless you’re up close, the brows could almost pass for being makeup rather than hair.

That may sound odd, but it suits Romantic’s high-maintenance impression.

For color, very light doesn’t tend to be ideal, feeling gentle rather than passionate.

But if everything else about your light brows is Romantic, then they can work well.

Medium brows can work well, and dark brows can work well. Though it’s typically not necessary to make your brows extremely dark, unless they’re naturally that way. Brows that appear quite dark relative to your coloring can sometimes feel heavy on Romantic.

The position of Romantic brows is interesting. Conventional wisdom suggests that higher-set brows read as more feminine. Yet if you look at highly Romantic celebrities, what you’ll find is that their brows are often (though not always) set low at the inner corners, sometimes even dipping below the tops of the eyes.

There’s a couple reasons for this:

1. Low-set brows tend to feel more intense and emotional; high-set brows tend to feel gentler and calmer. So having brows that start low helps express Romantic passion.

2. Romantic faces sometimes have curvy brow bones—meaning, instead of being horizontal, the place where the forehead meets the brows curves down over the eyes.

A curvy Romantic brow bone can result in brows that are low-set at the inner corners.

Lips

Texture

Shiny! To the extreme.

Go for an alluring, “wet,” 3D look.

Choose generous gloss, frost, or even shimmer.

Best Color

In my (controversial) view, Romantic’s absolute best lip color is quite light, like very light pinks or nudes.

One reason is that when lips have a shiny finish, it can make the lips look light, even if the actual lip product is dark:

This lip color isn’t light, but the shiny parts of it look quite light.

That’s simply what happens when you use a very shiny lip finish—the lips appear light at the places where light reflects.

When lips are shiny, the shiny parts look ultra-light!

How to enhance this effect? Choose a very light lip color, which mimics what naturally occurs when lips have a super-shiny finish.

Other reasons why pale lips work:

• Romantic are flattered by high-contrast, passionate-feeling makeup, including pairing dark eyes with light lips (or light eyes with dark lips).

• It’s easier to emphasize the eyes (vs. the lips) with dark colors—especially if you want to avoid an avant-garde Dramatic feel.

  • Think about how mainstream black eyeliner and mascara are, whereas it’s not so mainstream to wear black lipstick.

But it’s also true that Romantic’s best eye look will tend to have dark and light colors.

So, you may find that shiny lips in medium or deep pink or red—Romantic’s iconic hues—are amazing, too.

If you do a medium lip, you could emphasize both the dark and light colors in your eye makeup.

If you do a deep Romantic lip, you can make most of your eye makeup light, for contrast.

Lip Liner

Optional. Overlined lips mimic the shapes and vibes that already exist in Romantic faces.

If using, you could line around your entire lips, potentially overlining even further around the cupid’s bow and center of the lower lip, for a pouty effect.

You’ll want to blend the line into the rest of your lip product so there’s no harsh edges.

To keep the liner in place, use primer and/or concealer on the borders of your lips prior to applying lip liner.

Face

Foundation

Best foundation?

Dewy.

As with Romantic’s other makeup, shine prevails.

You can also replace foundation with tinted sunscreen, which often has a dewy finish.

If you don’t like dewy foundation, the good news is that it’s not Romantic’s most important product.

This is because Romantic makeup already incorporates intense shine on the lips, and often eyes and cheeks.

So if you prefer the rest of your face to have less obvious shine, that can still work, since there’s so much shine elsewhere.

In that case, look for glowy or even satin foundation.

Blush

Gorgeous for Romantic—adds sensuality and allure.

You don’t want clown-like, but you can be generous:

Romantic prefers blush all over the entire cheek, starting at or just below the top of the cheekbone and ending right at the hollow.

You can even add blush into the hollow and mix the blush with your contour (or use a darker blush instead of contour).

This feels glam and extravagant, plus emphasizes the face’s full, curvy shapes.

Contour

Maybe surprisingly—awesome for Romantic.

Contour adds shadows that emphasize the features’ 3D-ness.

So you can apply contour through the entire length of your cheek hollows (or use blush in the hollows instead of contour, as noted above).

You’ll want to apply in a curved shape and blend away any harsh lines.

Highlighter

Fantastic for Romantic, creating a 3D, captivating, lights-and-shadows effect:

Add highlighter at the tops of the cheeks and other areas that naturally catch light, like the nose, chin, or cupid’s bow.

You can apply in curving lines of moderate length and blend the edges for a soft feel.

Contrast Level

In makeup, “contrast level” can refer to:

• How light and dark the colors in a makeup look are relative to one another

• And how much your makeup colors stand out relative to your personal coloring.

Romantic’s best contrast level is rather high.

Pairing light with dark colors helps express emotional intensity.

And in a literal sense, it’s also a great way to make Romantic features appear more plump and 3D, creating a “lights and shadows” effect.

Does medium contrast work?

Medium contrast also suits Romantics.

While high contrast might feel most passionate and 3D, a moderate contrast level can emphasize Romantic’s softer side—the side that’s more gently sensual, rather than passionately intense.

Both sides are a part of Romantic beauty.

So if you aren’t naturally high contrast, medium contrast can still work well.

What if you’re low contrast?

If you naturally have low-contrast features, you might still find that medium- or high-contrast looks suit you.

This is because our essences determine our vibe moreso than our color seasons.

I’ve observed that Romantics sometimes pull off darker or higher-contrast makeup than their personal coloring might suggest.

A different option is to experiment with a low-contrast look. Since Romantic is so defined by shiny finishes, you might find that you can achieve a Romantic look by generously applying light-colored high-shine products.

You can also still create the “lights and shadows” effect that Romantic wants. Instead of pairing dark with light colors, try pairing very light with medium-light colors.

A final option is to match your contrast level to one of your other essences. Ingenue, Ethereal, and Natural all appear authentic in low-contrast looks.

Color Season

Romantic makeup is versatile for color season.

Winters have an obvious relationship to high-contrast makeup.

And many Summers are medium- or high-contrast, easily pulling off Romantic looks.

Warm seasons also have a strong Romantic connection, since warmth can express passion.

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That’s the overview of some of Romantic’s best makeup!

Overall, Romantics handle a high amount of cosmetics. But it’s not because they need to wear them or are deficient without them.

Instead, Romantic makeup echoes the qualities that already exist in Romantic faces.

Here’s extra detail:

Glam Makeup

The truth is that even though Romantics pull off a lot of makeup, they’re also stunning in little to none.

The benefit of wearing makeup is that it helps more clearly reveal your Romantic vibe.

Some of Romantic’s defining traits—like “glamour” and “extravagance”—simply have greater association with a made-up than bare face.

So Romantics may be less recognizable as Romantics when wearing little to no makeup.

Keira Knightley Theory

But sometimes, you can get a Romantic vibe mostly from fashion and/or hair, even while wearing little makeup.

This relates to my “Keira Knightley theory,” which I may detail more in a separate post, but briefly, the idea is:

• Keira Knightley is often cited as the perfect actress for period films.

• Part of why she “looks the part” in historical dramas may be that she has a lot of Romantic. So she looks authentic in full curls, voluminous updos, embellished gowns, and lace-up corsets.

  • And not only that: because she has a lot of Romantic, she can pull off glam fashion and hair without wearing much makeup—and it’s common in period films for actresses to have a “no-makeup makeup” look.

So makeup isn’t the only way to express your Romantic beauty.

Though if you tend to prefer more casual fashion and hair, then makeup might be your most practical method.

Should You Match Your Makeup to Your Facial Features?

For many people, this can be ideal.

So if you’re a Romantic Gamine with fully Romantic eyes, the easiest way to achieve harmony is doing fully Romantic eye makeup.

But, if you enjoy experimenting, then you might want to apply makeup that suits your overall blend, even if it’s not the perfect match for your individual features.

So if you’re a Romantic Gamine with Romantic eyes, you still might want to explore Gamine eye makeup.

And you still might find the results harmonious, since you are doing makeup that connects to your overall vibe.

How to Tell which of Your Features are Romantic?

Romantic beauty is easy to stereotype.

And the stereotypes reflect what we do find in some Romantic faces: pouty lips, plump cheeks, curvy eyes, and an overall “soft yet passionate” impression.

The problem is that stereotypes can also make it harder to find your essences.

For instance, it can be assumed that unless you have extremely full lips, or an extremely sensual vibe, then you must not have Romantic.

In reality, Romantic features sometimes appear more moderate in shape or size, rather than ultra-curvy.

This is partly because features like eyes, brows, lips, and cheeks frequently have more than one essence per facial feature.

So, all your features could have some amount of Romantic in them, but if they also have some amount of another essence (like Dramatic, Natural, Ingenue, etc.), then the result is that none of your features might look like a Romantic stereotype.

It’s true that having features that appear rather large and circular, or like circles with tapered edges, is a good clue that you have this essence.

But most people don’t have literally circular features. So you can still have Romantic even if your features don’t appear ultra-curvy.

Are You a Romantic?

If you like how you look in Romantic makeup, that’s a great clue you have the essence.

The complication: since almost everyone has a blended type, even people with a lot of Romantic won’t necessarily feel their best in a full face of Romantic cosmetics.

So you might experiment with adding individual components of Romantic makeup to your current makeup look, such as trying just Romantic eyes or just Romantic lips. Then you can see if you like any (or all) of the individual components.

Romantic Makeup Inspiration?

For Romantic makeup inspo, try searching for:

• Glam makeup

• Red carpet glam

• Bombshell makeup

• Bridal makeup

• Romantic makeup [shocker!]

These won’t always be fully Romantic but can be a great starting point.

Finding Your Essences?

I’ve been thinking lately about how it can be so challenging to determine your own essences.

There’s many reasons why, including that it’s difficult to be objective about yourself.

Another reason is that the way we talk about the essences might not reflect how they typically manifest in faces.

This will likely soon be the subject of a longer post, but what I mean is that we often discuss the essences separately, saying things like “Romantics appear sensual and have curvy features, Dramatics appear intimidating and have sharp features,” etc.

But when you ask the question, “Which of these essences do I look like?”, your initial answer might be—”I seem to have traits of all of them!” Or, “I don’t look decisively like any of them!”

And I think those observations can have a lot of truth to them, because many people don’t look like essence stereotypes.

Why?

Simply because the majority of people seem to have three essences (and many have four).

And when I analyze the essence percentages of people with three or four essence blends, what I’ve found is that it seems rare to have an essence that’s greater than 65%.

It certainly does happen. But, it’s not too common.

What’s much more common is to have an essence blend where none of your essences are greater than about 65%.

And often people’s strongest essence only comprises about 50% or less of their beauty—sometimes notably less.

What does that mean? You aren’t necessarily going to look, to the naked eye, like a stereotype of any essence.

Because let’s say you have 45% Romantic. That means you have 55% of essences that aren’t Romantic. So, is your overall vibe, to the naked eye, going to feel decisively, obviously Romantic?

Maybe not.

To be clear, having 45% Romantic can still be seen as a relatively high amount (since many people seem to have a dominant essence that only totals around 40% or less of their beauty).

And, if you make nearly half of your styling Romantic, it will connect with the Romantic in your face, and make the Romantic in your face more obvious.

But the point is that the reason it can be so hard to determine whether you’re a Romantic or Dramatic or Natural or Gamine, etc., is that almost no one looks like a pure version of these essences.

And many people also don’t look like a stereotypical version, especially since many people’s dominant essence is less than half of their total beauty.

What’s the solution to this, if you’ve struggled to type yourself?

One is to simply try to become more familiar with how the blended types tend to look.

You might begin to think not just in terms of which individual essences you’re likely to have, but also which blends you’re likely to have.

More about that in the future!