I’ve never been into makeup. Didn’t grow up with it around (my mom only uses her trusty eyebrow pencil), and frankly, I had a pretty boyish personality to even remotely consider getting into it when I was younger.

Now, in the past several months, I’ve gone on some dates with my husband. And while I’m pretty comfortable with how I dress, makeup was never part of the equation…. because well, I never had the interest nor any need to learn it thanks to friends who would always lend a hand. But sometimes, I feel a bit “underdressed” because my face looks so bare. Don’t get me wrong, the husband has never ever complained about that. But personally, I’m definitely noticing how I can be a bit more put together to tie the effort I put in on the outfits I choose. But I also knew I didn’t have enough interest in makeup nor the patience to sift through several hours of YouTube videos finding what would work for me in theory and do a trial and error in reality.

So I was on a quest to know if a personalized service was available to:

(1) learn how to do basic makeup that I can complete in 20 minutes or less, and

(2) get recommendations on what products I should buy that would work with me, specifically.

And that’s when I came across Jelaine Chua Lapus of Glow Mastermind, a Japan-certified Color Analyst who was highly recommended in a Facebook group I was in. Color Analysis is a concept familiar to me as I’ve seen it on social media every now and then since a couple years back, including a video of one of my favorite Youtubers, Safiya having her color analysis done. I just didn’t know there was such a service in the Philippines!

So I messaged Jelaine and asked her about what I had in mind. She was responsive and accommodating to my custom request, friendly, yet professional. It was easy to trust her and get her professional services.

What is color analysis?

Color Analysis or Personal Color Analysis is a term used to describe the method of determining a set color palette that suits your individual features such as complexion, eye color, and hair color. By process of elimination through draping fabrics of different colors against your bare face, you identify the colors that make your features pop better.

Glow Mastermind’s 1:1 In-Depth Personal Color Analysis includes: identifying your seasonal palette and sub-season, hair and makeup color recommendations, makeup kit check to see if it matches your palette, hands-on makeup guidance with the use of makeup according to your palette, outfit styling tips specifically for color matching, and a free palette swatch booklet and a brush set.

Fast forward to today

We met up in the Glow Mastermind Studio for our scheduled appointment and she handed me a Glow Pass, a small booklet that serves as your guide for the personal color analysis you’re doing for the day. She also handed me a free brush set as part of the package I got, which was perfect for my goal for the session of learning to do makeup!

She started the session with basic color theory to help understand the concept and psychology behind personal color analysis and what she would be doing. It made total sense so you’re not coming in blind as the session went on.

She started with identifying my undertone, or the color beneath the skin by draping fabrics and doing a process of elimination on what accentuates my natural qualities. Unlike your skin tone which can get tanner when you go to the beach and so on, the undertone doesn’t change. This can be either warm or cool-toned. Unsurprisingly, I was warm-toned, which is pretty common for Filipinas and Chinese-Filipinas such as myself.

She also used a skin tone value tester to determine my complexion, which unsurprisingly is Fair as I barely go out of the house lol.

Quick photo while identifying if my undertone works with the Winter palette.

Once my undertone was identified, she then went on to drape the individual swatches for the seasonal palettes, Summer, Winter, Spring, and Autumn, as well as metallic shades of gold and silver. You can really see how different you look depending on the fabric draped on you which is super fascinating especially when done one after the other.

My worst palette would be Summer (where black belongs.. it’s 80% of my wardrobe) as it makes me look either tired, washed out, or emphasizes the wrong things on my face. On the other hand, Autumn brought out the best in my features. By the end of the draping, it came out that I’m a True Autumn where colors with medium contrast and shades that are warm and muted look best.

The Glow Pass came in handy as the session goes on. You can update the Glow Pass to keep it as your personal assessment sheet for future reference. It was very helpful because just seeing all the colors can be overwhelming or confusing!

The mini swatch booklet for my season was also very cute and I could imagine it coming handy when shopping in-store so you can easily compare them to clothes you find and instantly know if they would work well for you!

Once we found the colors that work best with me, Jelaine also pointed out the best hair color (which were varying shades of dark brown) and to stir away from any Ash color or blonde that would wash me out. She also showed me lip and nail colors that would fit Autumns the best.

Which led us to the next part—my primary goal of learning to do makeup and finding more about products that would work best with my complexion without having to buy a lot of products only for them not to complement me. because she had a lot of different products suitable for different complexions

She advised that colors with warmer tones, typically with keywords like peach, honey, sienna, and copper are the ones to look out for when purchasing makeup for myself for example.

She demonstrated makeup applications step-by-step and identified the colors that matched my skin tone and undertone to flatter my features, while thoroughly explaining the what’s and why’s.

During the demo, she basically did one half of my face and I had to do it on the other half before we proceeded to the next step! It was very challenging and there was a lot of pressure from being watched, but it was also exactly what I needed to actually learn how to apply, versus simply watching someone else do it. We did a full-face makeup so I get the maximum experience, but she did note which steps made sense to meet my goal of “bare minimum 20-minute makeup look.”

Throughout the session, I asked very basic and potentially dumb questions. Case in point: “…so how do you hold an eyebrow pencil when you’re applying?” It was reassuring that she was very patient and non-judgmental and it really made for a great experience!

Here’s how it looked like when I got home! Unfortunately, I forgot to take a photo when it was better-lighted in the studio. Oopsie!

Takeaways

Overall, it was a very different yet fun experience. Jelaine was super friendly, knowledgeable, and more importantly, non-judgmental for someone like myself, a total noob who asks dumb questions and likely made some very basic makeup application mistakes. My only concern during the whole experience was the slight difficulty in seeing and appreciating things because I had to remove my eyeglasses. It’s not Jelaine’s fault though!

It was exciting to know what palette works best for me and what I can do if I want to continue wearing the colors that are not within that palette. After all, personal color analysis is really more of a guide than a rule to make someone look better through colors that flatter someone’s natural features.

If you want to have your own personal color analysis done in the Philippines, then reach out to Jelaine at Glow Mastermind!