Your guide to achieving the ultimate festival beauty looks
Professional makeup artist and digital creator Aoife Cullen is known for bringing her editorial eye to TikTok and beyond. To help us prepare for a week of festivals — I’m looking at you All Points East and Field Day — she shared some of her top looks and some tips and tricks to get us prepped beauty-wise. “Festival season is THE time to release your inhibitions especially when it comes to makeup,” says Cullen. “It’s always been iconic and in my opinion, makes the pictures we look back on even more iconic. it’s the perfect time to experiment with your look and have fun doing it!” Amen to that!
“Chances are you’ll have the same face on for about 24 hours, so you want it to be good (and reliable),” explains Cullen. “Rain or shine, because we never know, you want to make sure you’re using products that will hold up against whatever happens. Avoid putting creams and moisturises on your actual eyelid when it comes to eye makeup — the oils inside will never allow long-wear products to set and will very quickly break down over a couple of hours. Putting them directly onto dry, clean skin allows for the maximum hold claimed on the package.”
For festival beauty, Cullen advises using primers, waterproof mascaras, and long-wear liners & glitters like Glisten Cosmetics‘ Wet Liners. “One of my favourite products/brands for pay off and longevity is About Face – their eye paints are totally multipurpose, and no are brushes needed, which allows you to create whatever you look you want whilst being efficient with what you pack.”
“Festival makeup in my opinion should not be “perfect”. I wouldn’t fret over a flawless base, perfect brow or immaculately lined lips,” says Cullen. “The number one reason being that it won’t stay that way. Also, a festival is probably the one place on earth where you would actually look and feel out of place doing so. Embrace that and indulge in editorial, abstract looks.”
“Dashes of colour messily applied with fingers, excess glitter, bright mascara, and a lick of gloss on the lips is not only extremely easy, but it’s quick, requires little thought and won’t look terrible as the day goes on because it wasn’t meant to be perfect in the first place!”
“I’m a big believer in having fun with makeup on any occasion but doing so in a society constantly in pursuit of perfection can be daunting. Use your festival ticket as a means of unlocking a new character for yourself who uses makeup creatively and freely,” ends Cullen.
