The most beautiful sight at a wedding reception is, doubtless, the bride herself. To prepare a young woman for her big-day is indeed an arduous task. Bridal make-up trends vary from year to year, season to season and place to place. While high buns, clean braids and matte-finish make-ups ruled wedding get-ups till a couple of months ago, mechanized air-brush face-touch, messy mermaid braids and soft smoky eye-dos took over the bridal fashion recently. Kerala, the land of grand weddings, welcome yet another wedding season with an international touch in its bridal make-up trends.
Proud of skin-tones
Gone are the days when brides used to wear heavy patches of make-up and balanced a full roll of jasmine garland behind her head. Tony Micheal, an expert bridal and celebrity make-up artist says that messy hair-do and tone make-up rule the bridal make-up domain off late.
“Whitening is no more the aim of bridal make-up. Girls are in love with their skin-tones. In tone make-up, we enhance the basic skin tone of the bride by hiding the acnes and marks. It makes the bride look natural and unburdened with make-up,” He says.
Matching foundation pack with the hue of bridal attire is another trend that has evolved. If the bridal costume is a shaded with golden colour, the foundation pack is enhanced with an extra golden primer.
Hairdo fads
Deepthi Gopakumar, a Thiruvananthapuram-based make-up artist specializing in bridal make-overs, opines that the new-age brides are in love with 3-D hairdos. “Every hair-strand stands apart in this style.
The hair in the crown portion is lifted up to enhance the effect. 3-D hairdo offers a fresh glow to the face as well,” she says.
Mermaid braid is in vogue in bridal trends. Christian brides love flaunting messy mermaid braids with their serene white or off-white gowns. A neat mermaid braids goes well with ethnic costumes, like a saree or lehenga. According to Tony Micheal, open curls and loose hair are slowly moving out.
“Artificial curls stay neat only for a couple of hours. Hair gets messy in the long, tiring ceremonies. So people prefer messy low-buns and loose braids to loose hair these days,” he says.
However, some do flaunt volumized open curls during short ceremonies and evening receptions. Side-swept open hair is also preferred on such occasions.
Muslim bridal make-up
Speak of Muslim brides, speak of heavy lehengas, hijabs and mehendi. Muslim weddings had long been a matter of grand feasts and loud Oppana performances. Muslim brides had a set costume, veil pattern and a subtle make-up style with joint eyebrows – but not any more.
Muslim weddings in Kerala have lately, been in line with Arabic and Pakistani wedding styles. The transformation has hit the bridal make-up arena as well.
Keralite Muslim brides have ditched the conventional hijabi look and loves to flaunt open veils, show-casing their chic hair-styles and face-dos. Soft smoky eye-dos are the main attraction of Pakistani bridal make-up.
Tony Micheal says that black eye pencils are never used in soft smoky eye-dos. We use dark brown eye-pencils and shadows to make it look smoky. Black smoky make-up conveys a dark, mean look rather than an appealing one. On the other hand, Arabic style suggests real dark smoky eyes where black matte shade is used, he says.
Be it a conventional Kerala bride, Arabic princess or an elegant Pakistani bride, lip-shades are picked from nude palette. “It is all about balancing between eyes and lips. Normal eye-dos go well with bright lip shades. Smoky eye-dos need to be enhanced with the right, nude shaded lip-shade,” he adds.
Glittering Hindu bride
Subtle is the trend in Hindu bridal make-up. The new brides love to flaunt low-buns studded with tulips or rose-buds. Jasmine garland is not a must at all. Ditching bright red and maroon, the bridal costume has migrated to pastel shades of green, pink, peach and golden. Chettinad gold designs and copper shaded ornaments are the preferred jewelry.
To match with this, the facial make-up is enhanced with an additional layer of primer of the costume's shade. A layer of golden silver glitters are added to the eye-portion as well.
Pink, peach, golden and silver primers are widely used to match the bridal face make-up with costumes. Among these, silver shade is especially used for evening functions.
