Gemma Chan’s Guide to a Simple, Smudge-Proof Red Lip

[gentle music]

Hi everyone, I'm Gemma Chan

and today I'm going to be showing you

a bit of my skincare routine

and my modern, easy, soft focus red lip look.

I am using L'Oreal's hyaluronic acid serum,

which works really well.

I had quite a late night last night.

I haven't had much sleep, feeling quite tired,

but hopefully I'm going to wake up my face a little bit.

My secret weapon is a caffeine eye cream.

Just very, very gently dot under my eyes.

Hopefully encourage a bit of drainage of the puffiness.

So my mum was very keen on skincare and beauty,

and she got me started in my teens,

kind of cleansing, toning, moisturizing.

You know, that was her number one rule,

always make sure you look after your skin.

Although, saying that, she did let me run around the beach

with no sunscreen in the 80's.

So this baby, which I call my eyebrator,

which is not its actual name.

It's an eye massager and it mimics the tapping motion

of like a Korean facial, just to encourage a drainage.

Sit in the car on the way to work

at three or four in the morning, just with this.

It does that thing, which looks quite aggressive,

but actually feels pretty nice.

And you can also put it right into here.

Roller. This one is by Joanna Czech.

Usually I like to start with my neck

and we'll go like this, down the sides, bring it in.

When I've finished with the rolling

and all of that business, I will moisturize.

If I'm going to an evening event,

don't have to worry about the sun, sun's gone down.

I love this one, which is an Augustinus Bader.

I would love to say that I am really, really strict

and do a whole bunch of things to keep my skin great,

but to be honest, I have a tendency to overindulge at times.

I don't always, well, very rarely get enough sleep.

The main thing is to, like my mum said,

to cleanse, tone and moisturize.

Actually, saying that, I have once woken up in the morning

with a wipe stuck to my face.

I obviously passed out in the middle

of taking off my makeup, but there you go.

At least I made the effort.

Beauty, for me, is about self-care.

It's about having some time for yourself during your day.

You know, in the past,

I think the beauty industry has been very much focused on,

you know, preying on women's insecurities

and you know, not being such a great thing,

but now it's much more the messaging.

And I think it's getting through that

it's about time for you, you know?

You don't have to do it for anyone else.

It's okay to take care of yourself.

It's okay to give yourself that time.

Very important to prepare, if you're doing a lip later,

is a lip mask or a lip balm.

I'm loving this one at the moment by Laneige.

Foundation, using a Bobbi Brown foundation,

which I find lasts really well.

My main thing is I don't usually like to wear

any base on my forehead.

Just use it where you need it.

Just kind of where you need to just balance out

your complexion a bit.

So I have a little vein here that I just go over.

The other thing you can do

if you don't want it to be too heavy,

is you can mix this with your moisturizer.

So I learned to do my makeup,

I think probably from watching my mum in the first instance.

My mum loved Princess Diana and she had every single one

of princess Di's hairstyles at various points

in the 80's and 90's.

Yeah, it was a lot of hairspray, a lot of Elnett involved.

Concealer, Laura Mercier.

You know, when I was growing up,

it was a pretty homogenous idea of beauty

in advertising and the media.

There's definitely, thankfully, more diversity,

more inclusiveness and celebration of, yeah,

the whole wide variety of us.

We come in all colors, shapes, sizes, all of it.

And the more we see it,

the more we just realize that that is beautiful

and there's not just one idea of beauty.

I also use a corrector in Bisque, Bobbi Brown.

It works for me because it has a kind of slight peachiness.

So I like to just pop it on there.

Yeah, I don't like to put concealer too far up

to the lash line.

I find it kind of closes off the eye area.

So, you know, I try and keep it kind of

just where I need it.

A little bit of Tushaka.

So I use a mixture of two and three.

So again, just if you have any little shadows.

A little powder.

Addicted to this classic Tom Ford bronzer.

And I like to just,

someone told me this is called a temporal drape.

I know some people like to kind of do it

in the hollows with their cheeks.

But for me, I think it looks just a little bit more natural,

kind of on the cheekbone where I would tan.

So I used to be such a sun worshiper.

Loved to sunbathe, obviously terrible for your skin,

so I miss it very much.

Love these Swish and Pop Charlotte Tilbury.

And then I like to wear it quite high.

So as we are gonna do a bit of a lip,

I'm gonna keep the eye relatively simple.

I've got some eyeshadow,

and I'm gonna use this one here.

And we're just gonna...

So I bring it up quite high

and just do a wash over the whole lid.

I'm gonna use this shade here

and I'm just going to do a really, really soft

bit of definition.

And I use quite a big, fluffy brush.

Blend it up. And I'm gonna go in with the same color.

Everyone has their own preference.

I like to use dark brown eyeliner.

I find, well, look, black is very dramatic.

You know, it's full on.

For this, I'm kinda gonna go

for something a little bit softer.

I like to do a little flick at the outer corner.

To do is to use a cotton bud, just to soften the edge.

So it should, it's not a hard line.

I was a teenager in the 90's,

so it was the kind of supermodel era, you know,

Cindy Crawford, Lucy Liu, I should say as well,

who, you know, I watched on TV in Ally McBeal

and Charlie's Angels and you know,

representation, it wasn't that great

in terms of Asian representation when I was growing up.

So kind of anyone who was Asian that you'd see on TV,

was kind of a big event, so, but yeah.

Those are my inspirations.

Next step, curling the lashes.

Mascara. This is Lash Paradise by L'Oreal Paris,

the waterproof black.

So I like to do bottom lashes before the top.

And the key thing for me is, I think, wipe off the brush.

'Cause too much on the brush,

you're gonna have clumping issues.

Little zigzag all the way through.

So a good trick is to use a clean mascara brush

to just comb through or a lash comb to take off any excess.

And then if there are any clumps at the end,

it's good just to pinch the ends.

Just gonna brush a little bit through.

I definitely over-plucked my eyebrows

in the 90's and 2000's.

My mum always told me, never, ever pluck your eyebrows.

Of course, I didn't listen to her,

so it's taken a while for me to grow these back.

So if I feel like I need filling in,

which I think I'm okay today, I use a little eyeshadow.

Trusty brush and just gently fill in the gaps a bit.

Brow setting gel. This one is great.

The brush is great on this. You can just push the hairs.

This is good.

Do a little.

It disappears when you've put a bit of base over the top,

but yeah, just bring him back.

So I'm gonna show you a modern red lip.

You know, on the red carpet,

sometimes I've done a quite strong with a red lip line,

a really defined lip.

This is much easier to wear, if you use soft focus.

A makeup artist showed me this trick.

She calls it, I think she calls it like Snog Lip look.

I don't know if you Americans know what snogging is.

I guess, make out lips, well, snoggy lips.

Rather than using a red lip liner,

I like to do an invisible lip line.

So I'm going to use this Pillow Talk by Charlotte Tilbury.

So today, I'm going to be using L'Oreal Paris Colour Riche,

number 125, Maison Marais.

There you go. Got a good amount on just in the center.

Lips together.

And then the trick is, we use a fluffy eye shadow brush

and we just gently buff out the color.

So again, we're not doing any hard lines.

It's gonna be a really soft focus.

The great thing about this is a really easy way

to wear a red look.

I'm not going to be worried about it smudging,

ending up over half my face,

even if I've been wearing a mask.

Don't really want to joke, a situation going on.

I'm just gonna knock up the blush, now that I've seen.

Got the eye of the lip on.

I think I can go for a little bit more.

Final step, I have been using this

Makeup by Mario highlighter

and I am just, again, just use my fingers.

A little bit on there.

Now you're just gonna put a little bit.

There we go. I have finished my look.

I hope you guys have enjoyed watching

and that you've found this helpful.

I'll see you soon. [blows kiss]