Minimal Makeup Guide

First thing’s first, darlings, to create your minimal makeup look you’ll need the right makeup products. The best way to get the minimal makeup look is to choose light-coverage options with skin-like, natural finishes. Reach for a BB cream, tinted moisturiser or lightweight foundation to add subtle coverage to your complexion, as well as understated lip tints, blushes and bronzers to give the complexion warmth and the perfect mascara to enhance the look of your eyes.

Some of my favourite minimal makeup products include Hollywood Flawless Filter for a luminous complexion that looks flattering and filtered; Pillow Talk Lip & Cheek Glow for rosy, dewy-looking lips and cheeks; Beautiful Skin Sun-Kissed Glow Bronzer for bronzed, sunlit skin and Full Fat Lashes! mascara for defined-looking lashes.

Your base makeup will look the most seamless when you are using your correct foundation shade. Once you’ve decided on the perfect foundation finish for your minimal makeup look, be sure to select a shade that harmonises with your natural skin tone and undertone. Foundation mistakes such as using a shade that’s too light or too warm can cause makeup to look unnatural, so in order to perfect the minimalist makeup aesthetic, your foundation shade should create an even-looking complexion that looks as close to undetectable on your skin as possible.

Tilbury Tip: Use my Pro Shade Match Tool to discover your perfect foundation shade.

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Cream products are gorgeous options for creating a minimal makeup look. Naturally, when using some powder makeup such as powder blushes, bronzers and setting powders, it can sometimes create a flat, powdery-looking finish. With creams on the other hand, you are able to work product into the skin for a more seamless, skin-like finish. Skin looks dewy and luminous when cream products are applied, creating a more natural look than mattifying powder products. By reaching for creamy, blendable formulas, you can apply a small amount of makeup and blend it effortlessly into the skin.

Tilbury Tip: If you prefer a powder formula or have oily skin, don’t worry darling - you can still create a minimal makeup look using my Charlotte Tilbury powder makeup icons! While some powder formulas dull and mattify the skin, my cheek makeup powders like Cheek to Chic blush, Airbrush Bronzer and Airbrush Flawless Finish powder are formulated to glide on and reduce shine where needed, while still allowing your natural radiance to shine through!

When applying makeup, it’s easy to be a little heavy-handed with your minimal makeup products. To get the minimal makeup look, always take a less-is-more approach to putting on your makeup, taking a small amount of product at a time and blending out bit by bit. Using less product will help to avoid makeup looking overdone and will carry through the minimal aesthetic. With minimal makeup, less is more, darlings! Try a single dot of blush on the cheeks, a couple of coats of mascara and spot concealing the areas you want to add coverage to create a flattering and understated minimal makeup look.

Tilbury Tip: My formulas are beautifully buildable, allowing you to apply little by little to achieve your desired finish.

Minimal makeup doesn’t mean you can’t apply your favourite eyeshadow formula or a kiss of lipstick, darlings. Instead of going without, reach for nudes and neutral shades that complement your skin tone and celebrate your natural beauty. This barely there makeup style is all about making a big difference with the smallest details; even the slightest amount of brown eyeshadow or eyeliner can make your eyes pop, and a nude lip liner can effortlessly define the look of your lips to make them appear fuller. Choose shades that closely match the tones in your complexion and lips to enhance the look of your gorgeous, natural features.

Darlings, minimal makeup isn’t about covering up or contouring away, it’s a celebration of what makes you, you! The best way to stylise your minimal makeup look is by putting the focus on whatever features you have been naturally blessed with. Whether you have fabulous freckles, big and bushy brows, beauty marks, fair eyelashes or a pronounced jawline, embrace your individuality and let these features shine!

Begin your minimal makeup routine with a skin-perfecting primer that helps to smooth, even and blur the look of your complexion. A face primer is a great way to lift the look of your skin without adding extra coverage – they can even be worn without foundation as a minimalist’s dream makeup base. For glow-getters that love to look luminous, I recommend my Wonderglow primer for giving the complexion a gorgeous, soft-focus effect, or if you prefer a hydrating formula that blurs the appearance of pores, reach for Invisible UV Flawless Poreless Primer SPF50 to both prime and protect.

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To create a flawless-looking base for your minimal makeup look, choose a light-coverage formula that softly diffuses the look of your skin and adds minimalist coverage. I love to use Hollywood Flawless Filter as an understated complexion perfector; it lights up the look of skin with Hollywood-inspired radiance while letting your natural skin tone peek through.

If you want to conceal the look of dark circles or blemishes, I suggest choosing a buildable medium-coverage concealer to keep your makeup looking minimal and natural. With Charlotte’s Beautiful Skin Radiant Concealer, add small dots of concealer anywhere that you’d like to build coverage, then blend well for a second-skin effect.

Tilbury Tip: The less foundation and concealer you apply, the more minimal your makeup look will be. If you’re looking to achieve a smoother, plumper-looking complexion with a lit-from-within glow, my award-winning face cream, Charlotte’s Magic Cream, might be the only thing you need to apply!

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*To learn more about how Charlotte Tilbury Beauty collects and processes your personal information, including the images you provide in the Pro Shade Match Tool, please see our Biometric Processing Notice and Privacy Policy. Your results may be affected by the quality of the image submitted i.e., lighting, or camera quality.

Rather than sculpting the look of your brows with tinted brow gel and eyebrow pencil, try a more natural brow look by using clear brow gel to brush up your natural brow hairs. By fixing your brows into place with a clear brow gel like Brow Fix, you can define the natural shape of your brows and add structure to your minimal makeup look while giving them a softer, fluffier effect that doesn’t look overly groomed. This eyebrow look will give your makeup a relaxed and effortless feel, embracing your natural beauty while locking brow hairs into place.

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Mascara is the secret to eyes that mesmerise! Even minimal makeup looks benefit from a couple of coats of lacquered mascara – it makes lashes look longer and the eyes look more open and awake. For an everyday makeup look, I usually apply lashings and lashings of Full Fat Lashes mascara for glossy, fanned-out lashes, however, for a more subtle eye look, one or two coats will do. If you’re looking to apply only a small amount of mascara, I suggest focusing on the outer portion of the lashline for a fanned-out effect that helps the eyes appear lifted. 

Tilbury Tip: Instead of a super-black mascara, try applying brown mascara for a more understated look. Discover Pillow Talk Push Up Lashes! in my berry-brown shade, Dream Pop, for beautiful, brown lashes!

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You can use your favourite lip products to enhance your minimal makeup look, darlings! The most important thing is to keep your lips hydrated with a nourishing lip oil such as Charlotte’s Magic Lip Oil Crystal Elixir. The silky-smooth, roll-on formula gives your pout a glossy sheen, so once you’ve applied your lip oil to enrich your lips with magical moisture, you can leave your look as it is or reach for a lip liner, lipstick or lip gloss to create a minimal lipstick look.

When choosing your lip products, remember to select a nearly natural shade of lipstick that resembles your own personal lip colour. My go-to lip combination for a minimal makeup look is my Lip Cheat and Airbrush Flawless Lip Blur in Pillow Talk. First, I use Lip Cheat to shape up the look of the lips, creating a soft outline that makes lips appear fuller and wider. Then, I blot my liquid lipstick into the centre of the lips and blend out the edges with my finger for beautiful, blur-effect cloud lips.

Tilbury Tip: All of my Pillow Talk shades were created to give everyone, everywhere the dreamiest, nuanced, nude-pink lips that are universally flattering! Discover the perfect lip combination for your minimal makeup look in my Pillow Talk collection!

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Lifting the look of your complexion with bronzer and blush is the key to ensuring your minimal makeup doesn’t look flat. Reaching for cream formulas such as Beautiful Skin Sun-Kissed Glow Bronzer, Pillow Talk Lip & Cheek Glow and Beach Sticks will give your look a natural, healthy-looking glow. Applying a small amount of cream blush to the apples of the cheeks gives them a fresh, dewy look, and blending cream bronzer across the cheekbones, nose and forehead will mimic the natural beauty of a day in the sun. These cream products blend seamlessly into the skin for a minimalist-approved finish that gently warms the look of the face.

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Finally, to refresh and revive your minimal makeup look, apply a hydrating face mist to give the complexion an instant, dewy-looking glow. Charlotte’s Magic Hydrator Mist is my oxygenating face mist that veils the skin with magical moisture. It douses the face with skincare benefits including pollution defence and hydrating hyaluronic acid, while leaving behind a gorgeous, radiant finish that illuminates the look of your complexion. For minimal makeup, your skin should look healthy and fresh-faced, and this magical mist delivers immediate moisture that works underneath and over the top of makeup.

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Going without foundation doesn’t mean you have to be bare faced, darlings. We apply foundation to perfect and even the look of our skin, but your skin be foundation-free and still glow with confidence when you follow a supercharged skincare routine. In the absence of base makeup, I suggest moisturising your face with my award-winning Charlotte’s Magic Cream for a smoother-looking canvas; wearing a primer that helps to blur and soft-focus your complexion; choosing soft, neutral colours for your lips and cheeks; and playing up your eyes with mascara and eyeliner.

Keeping your makeup minimal doesn’t mean you have to dim your glow. By adding illuminating makeup products into your minimal makeup routine such as Hollywood Flawless Filter, Beauty Light Wands, Wonderglow and Collagen Lip Bath, you can create a gorgeous glow that looks low-maintenance and naturally radiant. For a glow-lover’s everyday minimal makeup look, luminous skin, mirror-shine lips and highlights that pop in every type of light are essential!

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Minimal yet mesmerising, a minimal eye makeup look can dial up the look of your eyes! An understated eye look can instantly elevate your makeup while continuing the theme of makeup minimalism. Cream eyeshadows like my Eyes to Mesmerise cream shadow pots are gorgeous for giving the lids an all-over wash of shimmer using one eyeshadow, and my Luxury Palettes such as The Golden Goddess and The Sophisticate are perfect for making the eyes pop! Finish the look with a minimal winged eyeliner using The Classic and a couple of coats of Full Fat Lashes! mascara.

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