This Easy Festival Makeup & Hair Tutorial Will Get You Ready To Rock In Legit 5 Minutes
Show of hands for how many of you reading this think doing a full face of makeup and styling your hair in five minutes is a complete sham. Oh, all of you? Well, I can't blame you. I was one of you. For so long, I laughed at the prospect of getting anything other than my mascara done in five minutes. However, I've now made it my personal mission to prove both myself and all of you wrong. Enter: Elite Daily's newest series, Ready In 5. Consisting of actually cool beauty tutorials, this series will break timely beauty looks down into five simple steps, all of which, together, can actually be completed in five minutes, so you have more time to focus on the plans that come next.
Deciding on a makeup look for a festival can be exceedingly tricky. Obviously, you want to look your cutest and join in on the fun with over-the-top, themed festival ~lewks~, but at the same time, you don't want a ton of makeup and embellishments that are just gonna melt right off your face right after stepping into the sun. Deciding on the right balance of festive but comfortable is a fine line to walk, but I have an incredibly easy festival makeup and hair tutorial that does just that. Even better, you can do it in five minutes, with a tiny-ass mirror, sitting on the floor of whatever tent you're camping in.
Here's how.
Step 1: Prep
Time: ~10 seconds
If ever there were a time to pile on the SPF, it would be when you're about to spend 49,058,394 hours outside with the sun beating down on you. So, please, lather up before doing anything else. I beg you.
To prep my skin, I used a tiny bit of CeraVe's Mineral Sunscreen Lotion SPF 50 with Zinc Oxide ($16, Ulta) (trust me, a little goes a long way with this one) onto my hand and lathered thoroughly into my face.
Step 2: Complexion
Time: ~2 minutes
It's totally up to you what type of foundation, if any, you apply for your festival look. For me, I do not want a heavy, full-coverage foundation to come streaming down my face when it's sweltering. That's why I opted for BareMinerals' Complexion Rescue Tinted Moisturizer Hydrating Gel Cream SPF 30 ($32, BareMinerals), a lightweight, tinted moisturizer that offers enough coverage to even out your skin tone and load you up with even more SPF, but isn't so heavy that it'll make you feel like you're the Wicked Witch of the West and someone just dumped water on you. You can even apply this with your fingers so your brushes won't have to brave the festival-related elements.
Once your foundation is taken care of, your face is ready for arguably the best part of this entire tutorial: ~*~gLiTtEr fReCkLeS~*~. I think it goes without saying that glitter is a quintessential part of every festival lewk, no matter the year or the season. Glitter freckles offer an updated take on this festival trend that'll stay on all day (yes, even through the heat), they take exactly 60 seconds to execute, and they aren't appropriative. We stan an unproblematic makeup look!
Glitter freckles are a versatile trend, to say the least. You can apply regular glitter to your face with your hand or a makeup brush. You can paint a glitter gel across your face. Or, you can kick it up a notch, like me.
I decided to use MAC Cosmetics' Glitter in “Silver Stars” ($22, MAC Cosmetics) to achieve a glitter freckle look with tons of star power. Since Silver Stars is — you guessed it — actually tiny little iridescent stars, I first dotted MAC Cosmetics' Duo Adhesive ($10, MAC Cosmetics), a lash adhesive, across the tops of my cheeks and the bridge of my nose to ensure the stars had something to stick to. Then I very quickly dipped my finger into the jar of Silver Stars and dabbed them on the parts of my face where I'd put the lash adhesive, so they stuck before the adhesive dried. Don't worry, though. You won't have to scrub the skin right off your face to remove this. A makeup wipe and an oil cleanser will easily dissolve the adhesive, if, for some inane reason, you don't want to wear glitter freckles forever and ever and ever (???).
As one final step in the complexion phase, I used my finger to dab the silver shade of NYX Professional Makeup's Glitter Goals Cream Pro Palette ($25, NYX Professional Makeup) over my glitter freckles to amp up the shine even more, because apparently, I take the lyrics "shine bright, shine far, don't be shy, be a star" from Tyra Banks' "Be A Star" way too literally.
Step 3: Eyes
Time: ~1 minute
Remember what I just said about taking those "Be A Star" lyrics too literally? Yeah, I'm still going hard with the glitter on this look, because, well, why TF not? I wanted my eyes to match my glitter freckles, so I applied the same silver shade from the NYX Glitter Goals Palette all over my lids using my finger for an easy, festive eyeshadow look.
For the next step on my eyes, I honed in on another quintessential festival trend — bold colors — by using Fenty Beauty's Vivid Liquid Eyeliner in “Hollapeño,” ($35 for a trio, Fenty Beauty) a neon lime green liner, for an intense cat-eye. After finishing off my eye look with several swipes of Milk Makeup's KUSH Waterproof Mascara ($24, Milk Makeup), which hydrates your lashes like wild and stays on all day through blood, sweat, and tears (you know, your typical festival occurrences), I was the most reflective, alien-like version of myself I'd ever seen. Perfect.
Step 4: Lips
Time: ~10 seconds
Like with foundation, what you choose in terms of lipstick (or another lip product) is up to you. If you're looking for something bright and bold that complements the rest of this look, I suggest Huda Beauty's Power Bullet Metallic Lipstick in “Cake Day” ($21, Huda Beauty). This glittering fuchsia lip added another pop of color to my look, even brighter than the neon on my eyes. Go big or go home, amirite?
Step 5: Hair
Time: ~1 minute, 40 seconds
Do you ever see all the cute AF, braided hairstyles people wear to festivals and silently curse them because braids like that are hard, take forever, and make your arms feel like they'll fall off? Oh my god, I feel you. But I have a braided style that takes you exactly no time to do, looks like it took you an hour, and will keep your hair up and off your neck so you stay cool: milkmaid braids. You'll look like you have a crown of braids with wispy pieces of hair hanging to frame your face, like a true festival queen.
To achieve my milkmaid braids, I began with my hair in two low-hanging pigtail braids. First, I lifted one braid up, laid it over the crown of my head, and pinned it to my head twice with bobby pins ($4, Target) — once about three inches up from the base of the braid and once at the very end of the braid. Then, I did the same with the other braid, making sure to hide the end of the first braid under the larger part of the second braid, and tucking and pinning the end of the second braid under the larger part of the first braid. That was literally it. I had a gorgeous crown of braids — no French braiding and no arm pain necessary.
Just like that, I finished a fun, low-stress festival beauty look that was perfectly on trend (but still allowed my skin to breathe) in literally five minutes. I was ready to light up any festival on any planet, and I hope you are, too.
So, how does that sound? Still don't believe me that I (and you!) can get this look done in five minutes? Hey, I get it. Seeing is believing and whatever. So, in the spirit of giving, I present to you proof that miracles really can happen: a #ReadyIn5 video tutorial.
In this tutorial, I'll take you through the steps and products needed to complete the look as we race against the clock. It's thrilling. It's suspenseful. But most importantly, it's funny AF to watch. Get comfy, and follow along with the video below to see how my look is actually ready in five. Comment on the video or DM me on Instagram to suggest looks you'd like to see broken down in the future:
