What Makeup Colors Combine Together : Ambition Edition

• Posted on 13 April 2021
• By Elea Wright
• Posted in makeup tips
• 0

You wake up in the morning, you drag yourself out of bed, if you are like most folks, you drink a cup of coffee and then what? Makeup time for a lot of us. What makeup do you decide to apply for the day? Are you a one look type of gal, or do you have a bunch of different colors? People ask us all the time how they should decide which colors to use in combination. The answer isn’t as straightforward as we’d love but we’re going to start covering makeup looks color family by color family.

GET DRESSED FIRST

Okay, honestly I don’t do this. What I do is drag my clothes on my bed and hope my dog doesn’t lay on it or carry it off somewhere. Knowing what I’m going to wear 100% informs my look. Let’s say that I’m going to wear something in the ambition tones (red-purple). I’m going to want to create a cohesive look for that. You can do that by doing one or both of the following.

BOTH EYE, LIP & BLUSH

Use ambition colors on the eye. One of my favorite go to looks is something a la Stephania here (makeup by Darin). You can see she is wearing a cool green which is a perfect pair with a cooler red-purple. When you are putting something really cool on your lips, you don’t necessarily want to wear something in the warm pink tones on your eyes. It tends to create a clashing look. Here she is wearing Infatuated as her lipstick and has on Discrete as her eyeshadow (also an ambition). Traditional and Timeless were mixed for her crease color for a muted cool more in harmony with her skin tone. Drama (an intuition) is her eye liner. Cautious is her highlighter / 'jacket color' (bringing wardrobe back into it again). Her blush is Trickster. While Cautious is the only non cool color here, he is still relevant to the outfit and also to our lovely model here. Using warm colors in combination with cool colors is a great way to play with the way we perceive light (cool and dark colors recede, warm and light do the opposite).

LIP

Another method is to match your lip to your outfit and do a very natural eye. That’s what Darin did on Tracy. Tracy is wearing a cool blue (again another good combo) and wanted to do something very natural on her eye, however, you can see we also snuck a little of that blue into her liner. See how wardrobe plays a big part into what you apply makeup wise. If you need help with matching your wardrobe to your makeup you may want to read up on Color Analysis and Shopping Tools. You may notice that unlike Stephania she is using Dubious as the liner primarily on the lower lash line. That has to do with her eye shape. Something we will discuss in another upcoming blog. On her cute cheeks is the blush Introverted which is an A11 like her lips which show our brand new lineup for our Ambition 11 Lip Palette.

COOL & COOL = ICE COLD?

So do you always need to pair a cool blush with a cool lip/outfit? Naw, but it is fun to do. Why? Because pairing a warm lip with a cool blush is a no no. The look lacks harmony and can cause you to look a bit overdone. Why can you rock a warm blush with a cool lip then? We naturally have a warm flush to our skin. Even if you have cooler natural tones in your lips and cheeks (people who can wear orange and yellow undertone colors), once you change your lip color to be warm, you’ve changed what ‘natural’ looks like on you. Take this lovely example as a person who is rocking ambition lips with a warm color on her cheeks. It is very subtle.

Here is an example I found on la internet of a cool blush with a warm lip. You can see the two clash creating a garish look without the fun pizazz.

BUT NOT HOT AND ICE COLD

Here is an example of a saturated power (red) with a saturated creativity (purple). We did NOT do this makeup.

Why is it bad?

Aside from the fact that her neck and face have a clear color differentiation from her body, the color purple is clashing with the power (red) eyeshadow that she has used in combination with the black. Because her eyeshadow is warm and bolder, it clashes drastically with her super cool lip. As a result, your eye skips around and has trouble putting her face into focus.

Theoretically with an eye that bold, lack of focus shouldn’t be possible, but because her lip is the most vivid thing about her look and her colors are not in harmony there is no focal point. Cover the lipstick and the look is more successful. Cover everything except her lips and it's a fun lip look. This is where color harmony is really important. When you are pairing saturated color, you want to create a harmonious look that prioritizes what you want to emphasize.  

UM OK… SO WHAT DO I DO?

Alright, so you have some do’s. You have some don’ts. So now what? Well you can do a few different things.

You’ve visited us and have cool colors

Play around with your colors and placement. Remember that everyone’s eye is different, even if only slightly in shape, so you should have fun experimenting with ways to enhance your face and eye shape.

Also feel free to type in your lipstick color, for example if you love Cynical. Search Cynical online and visit his product page. In his description and below it will be the ebhues code. Cynical is an A11d2o, so if you want to find the perfectly matching blush or even eye colors you can click Ambition 11 or type A11 into the search bar. You can even search for the exact depth perhaps for a liner by search A11d.

You can’t visit us and you are an online client

For people who have not and can not visit us with no history of ambition colors, we highly recommend doing the lipdrape and/or the ambition eye drape to find your best ambition colors (power is included in the lipdrape). The drapes are super helpful and will walk you through not only how to find your best colors, but also how to use those for more than just makeup (shopping!).

You’ve done all this and still want some help

Send us a message or drop a comment below. We are happy to provide assistance. You could even give us a call at 423.266.6222 and speak with a real person who can help you find your best colors.