Duping the Duchess!

Well, her makeup anyways.

(Please forgive me if I sneak one more post in before my trip :) ).

Last night the Duchess of Cambridge (who we all know I love) attended some swanky to-do in London. Besides drooling over her ridiculously beautiful Jenny Packham dress and LK Bennett shoes, I thought she wore simple but very flattering makeup.

(all images are from the Daily Mail)

What I loved most about her look is that it wasn't very complicated at all. She kept everything neutral and no one feature stood out from the others; the eyes, cheeks, and lips were all in harmony. It's normally considered a bit of a risk to wear such understated makeup to a red carpet event, because the whole point of the red carpet is to be oogled and stick out. But Kate is famous for always looking natural, and one should never mess with what looks best on them, a rule she seems to have embraced. She looks amazing, and I knew it would be so easy to copy this look with only a handful of products:

• Two eyeshadows
• Eyeliner
• Mascara
• Blush
• Lipgloss

The eyes are very simple: it's nothing more than a mauve-pink eyeshadow blended up above the crease, where it's blended with a frosty baby pink highlighter immediately beneath the brows. There are obviously lots of different shadows you could use to recreate this look, but I thought of five shadows right off the bat that perfectly match the warm, plummy undertones tones of Kate's look.

L to R: MAC Satin Taupe, MAC Haux, MAC Shale, Revlon CS Sterling Rose (the frosty pink shade), and L'Oreal Lavender Smokes shadow #2.

I decided to use the L'Oreal's Lavender Smokes quad (specifically shadow #2), a beautiful but very subtle mauve shadow. I chose it because it's a warm pinky-purple that looks amazing on green eyes (something I have in common with the duchess, and a feature I love to play up as much as I can). This shadow looks like suede once applied to the lid. It's a very soft, matte color, which is in line with Kate's makeup in that there is hardly any shimmer on the lid. Keepin' it simple, people.

I blended the mauve shadow out with my Sephora Professionnel rounded crease brush, bringing it right up to my brow bone. Because I have hooded eyes, I like to bring the color up as high as possible, because color tends to disappear when my eyes are open. Then I blended the frosted pink shadow from the Revlon CS Sterling Rose quad beneath my brown bone and into the inner corners of my eyes (pro-tip: this makes the eye look more open and awake).

I know Kate loves her eyeliner, and so do I, so of course I gave myself a healthy outline on the top and bottom lashes using Revlon's CS black liner before applying two coats of L'Oreal Voluminous Mascara in Carbon Black.

The goods:

For my cheeks I just applied a warm peachy pink blush from the E.L.F. bronzer and blush duo, and for my lips I used a Victoria's Secret brilliant shine lipgloss called "Mischief."

And this was the finished look:

Simple, flattering, and best of all, it only took five minutes from start to finish. I'm sure Kate's makeup took a bit longer than that, but five minutes works for me!

Do you ever admire someone else's makeup?