Lessons in glowing skin from makeup legend Pat McGrath
Perfect for the high summer humidity
This morning I attended a masterclass with Pat McGrath Labs, where makeup artist and education manager for the brand Petr Simon Fridrich shared a simple yet highly effective tip for a fresh, natural base. As a beauty icon and prolific talent, Pat McGrath has a number of makeup signatures – high voltage eye looks, crystallised lips – that each bear her distinctive flair for highly stylised editorial looks.
My favourite, however, would have to be her trademark hyperreal skin. Feats of cosmetic splendour aside, McGrath’s infamously incandescent base is equally impressive and a touch more wearable for everyday – particularly in the heat of high summer, which many of us in Australia happen to be sweating through right now.
Through summer, we’re often advised to sub out our denser foundations for lighter, airier textures such as skin tints and CC creams. While that might work for inhabitants of the Northern Hemisphere, down here our summer season coincides with a party-heavy end-of year calendar. As such, I’ll often be force to contend with makeup that’s even less stable than I am at this time of year.
That’s why I was so thrilled when Fridrich – who works backstage alongside McGrath – shared the makeup legend’s secrets to that distinctive diffused glow. Beyond my eagerness to soak in any fragment of McGrath’s genius, this particular tip also doubled as an SOS for anyone feeling the weight of a full face throughout a summer silly season.
Of course, it always starts with the skin prep. McGrath primes all her supermodel clients backstage with her own Pat McGrath Labs Divine Skin: Rose 001 The Essence, which coaxes glow from even the most hungover of complexions. If that one is out of your budget, I’d suggest opting for another super-soaking, milky essence; I like the Violette_fr Boum-Boum Milk and TBH Skincare’s Rebound Skin Milk Redness Relief Toner. Obviously if it’s during daylight hours, we’re following up with sunscreen – I tried the mesoestetic mesoprotech melan 130 pigment control recently, and it’s excellent.
Next Fridrich took two pumps of the brand’s iconic Skin Fetish Sublime Perfection Foundation into his palms – note: into, not on to – to warm up the base with his hands for almost a full minute, before delicately applying it to the face with fingers in sweeping outward motions. This technique, Fridrich said, was the key to building a base in layers “like a tinted moisturiser”.
Working in the foundation like this allows the makeup to melt into the skin, not off it. This initial layer ensures that the base looks natural, but it still evens the tone of the skin and imparts glow while leaving the complexion looking smooth. Once you’ve successfully massaged your base in, if you’re satisfied you can leave it there, or you can buff more product over certain sections of the face with a brush or sponge where you might need additional coverage.
I mean… duh! It sounds so basic, but I had actually forgotten the unmatched glow-giving power of applying a heavier base with the hands. I’d long forgone fingers as a makeup tool in favour of a brush or a sponge for perceived staying power, but Fridrich’s layering technique affords the same effect with less burden to the skin.
He also follows this method for concealer, lightly feathering it over the under-eye area with the fingertips for a seamless blend, before picking up Pat McGrath Lab’s Skin Fetish Sublime Perfection Blurring Under Eye Powder and setting with a fluffy eyeshadow brush. This way, as Fridrich explained, your base is “not patchy, it just blends beautifully where you need it”.
I immediately raced home, de-based and then re-based to try the layering technique with my own edit of products. I wore it out for hours around Newtown as I ran errands in the relentless humidity, and I can confirm that it still looks perfect – natural, no messiness, all glow, no grease.
I hereby dub it to be the ultimate foundation trick for a swelter-proof party season, courtesy of Fridrich and McGrath (and you’re hereby obliged to tell me if you try it).