The Art Of {The Selfie}

I have been known to take a selfie or 6 in my day. So today I thought I would blog about some tips and tricks to taking the perfect selfie.

I touched briefly upon the importance of eyebrows in pictures in one of my musings posts. The perfect arch will make you look good in real life and in pictures even if you don't have any makeup on. When you have great shape to your brows, you automatically have great shape to your face. So, step one to the perfect selfie = perfect eyebrows.

Obviously being camera ready when taking your selfie always helps. Of course big lashes are very important to make your eyes pop for the picture. IMO though, there is an even more important step in giving good face with makeup and that is HIGHLIGHTING & CONTOURING. I had to yell that because I feel so strongly about this topic...Highlighting and contouring makes it so you don't have to do much with your face (besides angle it the right way - see below) in order to get that perfect shot. Although I think Kim Kardashian is stunning without make up, contouring makes it so she is even MORE stunning in pictures. I actually believe that Kimmy K and her makeup artist (Joyce Bonelli) brought contouring back into style. So take a page out of the K handbook, contour and highlight your face and watch your selfies and regular pictures turn into Instagram gold. Jaclyn Hill has my favorite contouring video in all the (YouTube) land.

Everyone has a good side and everyone has a good angle. The trick is finding said angle. It's pretty rare that some one's best "side" is straight on. Angling your face and body while posing for the camera is always the way to go. If you have ever seen a photo of Paris Hilton (who has worked with a posing coach) you will notice that she is NEVER straight on in photos. Angling yourself softens up your lines and helps the light disperse evenly. Now, this is not to say that once you find your good side that you should take every selfie with the same face/angle. I can not stand when girls (or guys) post the same picture with the same face and the same angle. Switch it up a little! The trick is to practice in the mirror and to take a million pictures to see what angles (plural) are your best ones. 

Okay, so there is one trick to my selfie game that I will not give away (hey, a girl's got to keep SOME things to herself) and that is what filter app I use. But I will say that a filter (or two) always helps your case. Don't ever be afraid to use them because EVERYONE does... #nofilter = lies