Faux freckles: Our unexpected beauty fave
From everyday to festival looks, mastering them is easier than you think
For so many people, freckles are a sign of summer — a sprinkling of dots over the bridge of a nose, a sure sign of sun. Freckles are a peppering of individuality, a custom dash of tiny stars dancing across your nose and upper cheekbones. They're a sign of a day spent lingering in the sun, soaking in the ocean and sipping something long and cool on the dock. Penélope Cruz, Emma Stone and Kate Mara have loads of freckles. So too do Gigi Hadid (she calls them "frex"), Devon Aoki, Gisele Bundchen, Stacey MacKenzie and Kendall Jenner.
This year, however, fake freckles are taking over YouTube as the ultimate beauty feat to achieve...minus the UV exposure.
Because strong brows, matte lips, contouring and strobing have already been perfected, YouTube's army of elite makeup artists have set to work on freckles — the final frontier of makeup mastery, heavily dependent on caution technique.
Nobody wants their fake freckles to look faux…
YouTuber Dondjra Deluxe applies her freckles where the sun would naturally hit — high on her cheeks, down the bridge of her nose, on her chin, and one on her lip for good measure — using a blonde eyebrow pencil.
Chantel Jeffries uses an eggplant powder eyeshadow, which she just taps loosely over her nose, and a felt tip eyebrow pen so her freckles come in different textures and tones — the end result looks surprisingly realistic.
CoverGirl's first Cover Boy, James Charles, has incredible technique and masters the aesthetic of natural freckles using a brow pencil, gel and a beauty blender.
However, faux freckles have even been upgraded for music festival season to become glitter freckles. Sharon Dubois does a really gorgeous gold glitter freckle tutorial on her channel using Urban Decay Heavy Metal Glitters in Midnight Cowboy. Her trick is to "go ham" on the sparkles but within a specific frame of your face, where you'd wear a mask over your eyes or to a masquerade.
This gal uses mauve, violet and blue liquid lipsticks and a fine-tipped paint brush to decorate her face in freckles that aren't glittery but super colourful nonetheless.
The technique for faux freckles is simple enough, whether you're going for a natural or a glittery cheek.
First, you even out your natural skin tone with your foundation. Next, you choose two products — they can be powder, gel or pencil — in two shades for depth. Apply your first layer of freckles in the lighter shade first, with a light hand and without order, before setting with a beauty blender or a large brush. Next, apply your darker shade a little more sparingly overtop your first layer of freckles. Finish with a dusting of translucent powder or highlighter to set your freckles in place for the day.
As for products, these are a good bet:
Anastasia Beverly Hills Contour Cream Kit, $52 at Sephora, has 6 shades of cream in total and 3 that would be perfect for faux freckles on any skin tone. The bonus, of course, is that this kit is designed for people who love to contour so it's a 2-in-1.
Less of an investment but equally a 2-in-1 select would be NYX Cosmetics Two-Timer Dual Ended Eyeliner, $12, at NYX Cosmetics, which would give you faux freckles in one tone but in two textures.
We think the Urban Decay Heavy Metal Glitter Eyeliner in AMP, $20 at Urban Decay, is perfect for showing off some sparkly freckles at Way Home. It's a really pretty bright turquoise blue liner with darker blue sparkles, something a mermaid would probably pick.