What goes into creating an unforgettable headshot? Many people would say that your pose, your outfit, and the background all make a major difference. That’s absolutely true! But there’s another essential component they’re forgetting: makeup. Even if you don’t routinely wear makeup, certain techniques—like powder to reduce shininess on your face—are essential. Makeup is worth considering whether you plan to take a headshot for LinkedIn or create a portfolio of acting headshots.
Even if you already know how to do your makeup, you probably need a crash course in makeup for headshots. The bright lighting used for professional photos can make your features look more washed out, so the same makeup tricks you use for everyday looks won’t necessarily translate well on camera. Here’s a quick dive into how to do your makeup so your headshot reflects the best version of you!
What to Consider Before You Begin
If you want a headshot that gives you the results you’re envisioning, it’s important to make sure you don’t rush any step of the process. Before you get started, take a look at these common steps to take (and pitfalls to avoid) before taking your photo.
Stay Away From New Products
In the days leading up to a photoshoot, you may decide it’s time to overhaul your skincare routine, try out a new foundation, or start using a new hair product. Don’t do this! While it’s understandable to want to change something to help yourself look your best, using a new product is risky. You never know how your skin is going to react to a brand-new product, and the last thing you want is to show up for your photoshoot with an overnight breakout.
Don’t Rush To Get Tan
This is another mistake you may be tempted to make—you want to have a healthy glow in your photos, so you head outside or to a tanning salon for a few days to darken your skin. If all goes as planned, you might end up with the result you want. What’s more likely, however, is that any last-minute tanning will result in a sunburn or peeling. Not a good look!
Time Grooming Appropriately
Grooming before a photoshoot is a tricky thing. On one hand, you want to make sure you don’t have a five-o-clock shadow or see your waxed eyebrows starting to grow back in. On the other hand, you don’t want to groom so close to a photo shoot that your skin gets red and irritated.
For best results, shave the night before a shoot (or at least six hours beforehand). If you need to wax or otherwise reshape your eyebrows, do so at least a few days in advance. The same goes for upper lip waxes.
Stay Hydrated
If you want your skin to look as healthy as possible for your headshot, don’t just focus on the outside. No matter how good your makeup is, hydrated skin is always going to look better than dehydrated skin. For at least a few days before the shoot, make an effort to drink more water than you normally do.
Pick Out an Outfit
If you often change your makeup based on what you’re wearing, be sure to pick your outfits in advance of the shoot. You’ll need time to select makeup that goes well with your outfit and will translate nicely in photos.
If you’re planning to do multiple looks in a single photoshoot, things get a little more complicated. Generally speaking, if you do this, you should start out the shoot with the looks that involve the least amount of makeup—especially darker-colored makeup like eyeshadow and blush. Remember that it’s always easier to add more color than it is to take it away!
You Want To Look Like You Do on Your Best Day!
This is good general advice for any photoshoot, but it’s especially helpful when you’re getting a professional headshot done. If you don’t ordinarily wear much makeup but decide to really add a substantial amount for a headshot, you probably won’t be able to pull off the look you want. On the other hand, if you usually wear a lot of makeup, you may want to dial it back for the photoshoot.
With all that in mind, you don’t want to end up with a headshot that looks nothing like you in your day-to-day life. It can be confusing for clients or employers to see your headshot and then meet someone who looks completely different. And while you can feel free to take inspiration from the headshots of other people in the industry, don’t closely copy their looks, poses, etc. Your headshot—just like the professional services you offer—should be uniquely you!
1. Concealer and Foundation
You may use foundation, concealer, or both to even out your skin tone and cover up blemishes. However, you need to realize that the bright studio lights used for headshots are often strong enough to effectively shine through thin layers of both. The result is a photo where your blemishes may be partially covered, but they’re still visible enough that anyone viewing your photo can plainly see them.
How do you fix this? The best way to do so is to use more concealer than normal. After you’ve applied your foundation, put on additional concealer if needed.
In terms of what foundation to use, liquid and powder both work equally well. However, it’s not generally advisable to use a type you aren’t familiar with. When you do this, it’s a lot easier to make mistakes. The last thing you want is concealer that looks runny or caked on.
Choosing a matte foundation is extremely important. “Dewy” or “sheer” foundations might be great for making you look younger in real life. Unfortunately, in a photo setting, they tend to reflect camera light. That can make you look sweaty in your photos, which is exactly what you don’t want!
And lastly, when it comes to color, make sure you pick a foundation that matches the color of the skin on your neck and chest. In day-to-day life, it’s fine to choose a foundation that’s a touch darker. But studio lighting will make the contrast between the darker foundation on your face and the lighter tone of your neck and chest extremely apparent. Make sure you look closely to verify that the foundation you use blends seamlessly with the rest of your skin.
2. Powder
Anyone’s face can start to look shiny during the course of a photoshoot, and this is something you should avoid at all costs. One way to do this is to use blotter paper or thin, oil-absorbing paper. Make sure you periodically check your reflection to make sure your skin isn’t starting to look overly shiny or greasy.
Powder is also a great way to ensure your skin stays matte. When choosing a powder, make sure it (1) doesn’t contain any kind of shimmer and (2) suits your skin tone. If you choose a too-dark (or too-light) powder, you can run into the same issues that you would with foundation of the wrong color. Powder can do a great job of absorbing oil and removing shine, but you should still check periodically to see if you need to apply more.
3. Eye Makeup
Your eyes might just be the most important part of a headshot. Your eyes can say a lot about you, so you want to take extra steps to make sure the viewer’s attention is drawn toward your eyes. Here’s a breakdown of the different elements of eye makeup and how you can optimize each one.
Eyebrows
Not everyone needs to shape their eyebrows. If you need more extensive reshaping, consider doing so at a salon. If you don’t need to do that, you might be able to neaten your brows with an eyebrow-specific comb or brush. You should also fill them in with a brow pencil to make them appear fuller and more even.
It can be hard to see any imperfections in your eyebrow makeup using just a bathroom mirror. Here’s an expert tip to help you detect any uneven areas: go to a window in an area with more natural light. Turn the mirror in a way that lets you see your reflection in the window reflect back at you. Look closely at your eyebrows, even out any imperfections, and you’ll be all set!
Eyelashes
Some people like to wear false eyelashes because it makes their lashes look longer and more noticeable. In most situations, this is a great look. However, you shouldn’t wear them in a professional headshot. In most cases, false eyelashes will make your eyes look half-lidded—and you really don’t want to look half-asleep in your headshot!
Instead, choose a good mascara to draw attention to your lashes without making them the focus of the picture. Most professional photographers suggest wearing black mascara even if you typically wear brown. The flash of the camera makes everything appear lighter, so in many cases (except with foundation), it’s a good idea to wear makeup that’s just a touch darker than what you’d normally put on. Brown mascara tends to not come through very well in photos, so black is the best way to go.
Liner
Like lashes, some types of eyeliner tend to not do as well in photos as they do in real life. In most cases, photographers suggest putting liner only on your upper lids. Wearing eyeliner on your lower lids might look fine if you typically wear very dark makeup, but you should still be cautious. In photos, eyeliner under your eyes tends to make your eyes look smaller. It can make you look older, too.
Of course, just like you would with a brow pencil, you should look closely at your eyeliner to make sure that you can’t spot any gaps in coverage.
Shadow
For some people, eyeshadow doesn’t play much of a role in their typical makeup routine. If you intend to incorporate shadow into your headshot, try to stick with lighter neutrals. Darker eyeshadow might make your eyes look partially closed, and when you add very bright studio lights to the mix, your shadow can look even darker. It’s also important to avoid glitter or shimmer here. These types of shadow reflect light very easily, so matte colors will keep the look more natural.
If you think a darker eyeshadow is an important part of your photo session, most photographers suggest starting with your lighter color before adding darker, more intense shades of eyeshadow to the mix. Adding darker shadow over lighter shadow isn’t likely to cause a problem. However, if you need to take darker shadow completely off to apply lighter makeup, it might impact the overall look of the rest of your makeup.
4. Blush
If you have a lighter skin tone, blush is an important part of your headshot makeup. Because studio lights can both flatten your features and wash out your coloring, blush can give you a more natural, glowing appearance. Because of the bright lights, you should go for a color of blush that’s just slightly darker than what you’d normally wear.
It’s always important to make your blush look natural. But when you’re posing for a headshot, it’s even more important. To give your blush a natural, even appearance with neat edges, try this technique:
- Start by drawing the edges of your blush in a wide circle
- Fill in that large circle with smaller concentric circles until the entire area is filled in
- Look to make sure you can’t see the lines between the circles
When in doubt, go with less blush rather than more. Adding some is easy. But often, you have to entirely remove portions of your makeup if you want to remove blush. Redoing your makeup can cost you extra (if you’re paying by the hour). It’s also just a pain!
5. Lips
Even if you don’t routinely wear lip gloss or lipstick, you should still pay attention to your lips before a headshot. At least a few days beforehand, start wearing lip balm throughout the day. You want to make sure your lips look healthy and not chapped. Chapped lips will often form little wrinkle-like lines, and certain camera angles can highlight those lines, making them much, much more noticeable. If your lips are especially dry, you might consider regularly applying lip balm further in advance, or using an intensive healing lip balm—or both.
Having healthy lips is important, but if you want to wear some lip color in your headshots, there are additional precautions you should take:
- Don’t apply lipstick or lip gloss beyond the boundaries of your lips to make them look bigger because the camera will usually pick this up
- Avoid shiny lip balms and lip glosses as they don’t look good on camera
- Triple-check your teeth to make sure you haven’t gotten lip color on them
- Stay away from lip liners and very dark lip colors because they often create tiny lines around your mouth
If your photographer notices imperfections in your lip makeup—like lipstick getting on your teeth, for example—they’ll generally let you know. However, it’s entirely possible for photographers to miss little issues like this. It’s always a good idea to keep an eye on your own makeup just in case!
Bonus Section: Styling Your Hair for Headshots
Styling hair isn’t really the same thing as doing makeup. But because hair and makeup are often mentioned in the same breath, we figured we’d briefly mention hair, too. Pay extra attention to make sure your hair doesn’t look messy or frizzy for your headshot. You probably already have a hairstyling routine, so in most cases, you can just use that.
However, there’s one important tip to keep in mind: stay away from matte hair products. That might sound counterintuitive. After all, when it comes to choosing makeup for a headshot, you should always choose something matte.
Matte-finish hair products will make your hair look lifeless and dull in photos, so you should make sure the products you use enhance shine. It can also help to have a shine-enhancing spray with you so you can re-apply if needed.
Your Next Professional Headshot Is Only a Few Clicks Away
If you’ve never had a professional headshot done, you might be taken aback by how much headshots cost. While pricing can vary depending on where you live, how much retouching and editing you want, and other factors, most professional shoots will cost a few hundred dollars on the low end. Very high-quality shoots can cost several hundred dollars and even run into the thousands. It’s enough to make many people seriously consider doing an at-home smartphone photoshoot.
Fortunately, there’s an option between these two extremes. With an AI headshot generator like Portrait Pal, you can create a stunningly realistic headshot. The tool uses several real photos of you to create a composite image, and you can select background and pose preferences to generate that perfect image you see in your head.
You’ll have a quality headshot that rivals what you’d get from a high-end photoshoot—for a fraction of the money and time you’d typically spend. We’ve generated more than 2.5 million headshots for our customers, and we’re ready to help you begin your career on the right track, too. Get started with us now or try out our free headshot generator first to help you decide.