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 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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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 moisturizing 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 mesmerizing, 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 Mesmerize 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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Apply a supercharged skincare routine and your skin will look its best at every age, darlings! My father was a fabulous artist and he taught me that a painting will look the most beautiful when the artist uses a gorgeous, smooth canvas. When you massage magical skincare products like my award-winning Charlotte’s Magic Cream into the skin before makeup, your skin will feel plumper, smoother, and magically moisturised, which in turn will help your makeup to glide onto the skin for a silky-smooth application.

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I always recommend using liquid foundations and concealers on mature skin because they mesh with the skin more gracefully than alternatives like powder foundations and concealer pots which can be prone to emphasising skin texture. Once your skin is prepped with skincare, smooth a hydrating liquid foundation like Charlotte’s Beautiful Skin Foundation onto the face using the Magic Complexion Brush, then apply small amounts of Charlotte’s Beautiful Skin Radiant Concealer in any areas you’d like some extra coverage such as under the eyes and over smile lines.

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For minimal makeup over 60, I like to choose warm colours that help to lift the look of the complexion and neutralise the look of blue and grey tones in the skin. I’m always amazed by colour theory and the ways that certain tones interact with each other to make different features pop! Applying ambers, golds and caramel browns to the eyelids is perfect for making minimal makeup pop on people over 60, and using peachy blush colours and sun-kissed bronzers can dramatically enhance the look of mature skin.

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If your eyelids are prone to creasing, try incorporating eyeliner and mascara into your minimal makeup routine to enhance the look of your eyes. While eyeshadow gives the eye area a beautiful pop of colour, you can get a similar effect by gliding an eyeliner pencil along the upper lash line and adding a couple of coats of mascara to the lashes to accentuate the look of your eyes.

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With age, lips can lose some of their natural fullness, but with a little bit of lip liner, they can appear instantly reshaped and resized. By applying a shade of my Lip Cheat lip liner that closely matches your natural lip colour, you can cheat the look of a plumper pout while keeping your makeup look minimal.

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To keep your bridal makeup minimal, choose a light-coverage foundation to help even the look of your complexion. Tinted moisturisers, BB creams and light-coverage liquid foundations are popular with bridal makeup artists as they give a natural-looking finish that photographs beautifully, however, my personal choice has to be Hollywood Flawless Filter. Inspired by the flattering flash of Hollywood lights, Hollywood Flawless Filter is my glow secret for superstar skin. It illuminates the look of your complexion while adding minimal coverage with a radiant, red-carpet finish and is a gorgeous option for creating your bridal glow.

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Darlings, on your wedding day, there will be a line of people waiting to tell you that you’re glowing! Your natural love glow will look beautiful as it is, but I suggest applying radiant makeup products to help dial it up! Reaching for illuminators and highlighters like my Beauty Light Wands and Hollywood Glow Glide Face Architect Highlighters to give the face a magical glow that’s fit for a bride.

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You may be tempted to sculpt the look of your face by contouring on your wedding day for a flattering, chiselling effect, but I recommend bronzing instead. Contour is naturally cool-toned and can create unflattering shadows on the face if done incorrectly, whereas bronzer helps to warm up the look of the complexion with a sun-kissed glow and can also offer a subtle sculpting effect. Choose bronzer over contour in-keeping with the less-is-more philosophy of minimal makeup and you’ll look beautifully bronzed on your special day!

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With talking, eating, drinking and dancing on the agenda, your lip products have a lot to contend with on your wedding day. It’s important to choose a long-wearing formula that you can rely on such as matte lipsticks, liquid lipsticks or lip stains with impressive staying power. I created my Airbrush Flawless Lip Blur as a next-generation liquid lipstick that mattifies and blurs the look of the lips while feeling hydrating and comfortable to apply. Dab your favourite shade onto the lips for a kiss of colour and create a blotted bridal lipstick look that looks flattering and flawless.

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Even minimal makeup looks need to be locked in with setting spray - especially on an important day like your wedding! Once you’ve applied your minimal bridal makeup and are ready to walk down the aisle, apply a generous spray of Airbrush Flawless Setting Spray to help set your makeup into place for up to 16 hours of celebrations. The airbrush-effect formula helps to smooth and blur the look of your complexion, while helping your minimal makeup products to stay all day!

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