K-Pop Idols' Base & Brow Edit – baerry

Q: How do I get idol-style brows?

Use a fine brow pencil to draw short, hair-like strokes and keep the shape soft and natural rather than heavily filled.

Q: Is contour hard for beginners?

A soft powder contour is forgiving. Apply a little at a time and blend well for a natural sculpt.

Q: How fast does Baerry ship?

Usually about 5 to 7 business days, direct from Seoul, with no surprise customs fees.

Ok so I have a folder on my phone that is just idol selfies. Not for the outfits. It's the makeup.

And the thing that always got me is how little it looks like they're wearing. Then I'd copy it before going out, look in the mirror, and somehow I'd be the one who looked like she tried really hard.

It took me way too long to figure out that I already owned most of the products. That wasn't the problem. I was putting them in the wrong places, and using too much of everything.

So here's what I actually changed, using the stuff we have on the Baerry shelf. Nothing here is complicated, which is kind of annoying considering how long it took me.

Four things I kept noticing

The skin is thin. Like, barely-there coverage. You can still see texture and that's on purpose. I used to build up foundation until my skin looked like paper and then wonder why it didn't look like theirs.

The brows are flatter than you think. Not much arch, sitting fairly low. This one surprised me the most. I'd been drawing a nice lifted brow for years thinking it was flattering.

Shading is cool-toned, not warm. Real shadow on your face is greyish. Bronzer is orange. When you use bronzer to carve out a jaw, it doesn't look like shadow, it looks like you drew on a tan. Very obvious in daylight. Ask me how I know.

The lip is two products. Tint first, then gloss. Not one or the other. I skipped the tint for ages because it felt like an extra step for nothing, and I was wrong.

Start with the brows, and keep them boring

WONHEE of ILLIT, Rom&nd Han All Sharp Brow — K-pop idol makeup

WONHEE · ILLIT

If you look at WONHEE's brows there's almost no arch. They run pretty straight and sit low, and the ends kind of fade out instead of stopping in a point. It looks unfinished at first if you're used to a sharper brow. But it makes the space between your brow and eye smaller, and that's the thing that makes the whole face read soft instead of sharp.

Also nobody's brows are actually symmetrical so please don't spend twenty minutes on this. I used to. It never helped.

Rom&nd Han All Sharp Brow

What worked for me: Start in the middle of the brow, not at the inner corner. Short little flicks going the way the hair grows. Leave the front almost bare and just brush it up at the end — that's where the heavy look comes from.

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Powder contour is more forgiving than cream

ANNIE of ALLDAY PROJECT, ETUDE Contour Powder — K-pop idol makeup

ANNIE · ALLDAY PROJECT

ANNIE's face looks structured in a way that reads more like good lighting than makeup, and I'm fairly sure that's powder rather than cream. With powder you can go in light and keep adding until it looks right. Cream is faster but if you overdo it you kind of have to start the whole base again.

I switched to powder and my contour stopped looking like a stripe basically immediately.

ETUDE Contour Powder

The bit I always forget: Tap the brush off before it touches your face. Way more than feels necessary. Then sweep under the cheekbone toward your ear, not toward your mouth, and blend upward at the end.

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This is the cool-toned thing I was talking about

JIHYO of TWICE, too cool for school Artclass By Rodin Shading — K-pop idol makeup

JIHYO · TWICE

Look at the shading around JIHYO's hairline and down the sides of her nose. It's grey-ish. Not orange. That's the whole difference between it reading as a shadow and reading as product.

This was genuinely the biggest change for me. I'd been using a warm bronzer everywhere — hairline, nose, jaw — and my face looked muddy in every photo taken with flash. Swapped to a cool shading powder and suddenly it just looked like my face had angles.

It's a compact that's been around forever and people keep buying it for a reason.

too cool for school Artclass By Rodin Shading

Where it goes: Only where a shadow would actually fall. Hairline, sides of the nose, under the jaw. Keep it off the front of your cheeks. Small fluffy brush, tiny amount, blend until you can't find the edge.

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The step I skipped for a year: tint under the gloss

MIYEON of i-dle, Colorgram Fruity Glass Tint — K-pop idol makeup

MIYEON · i-dle

MIYEON's lips look like lips. Just better ones. That's because the colour is soaked into them rather than sitting on top.

A glass tint stains a wash of colour in, so when the shine wears off during dinner you're left with softly flushed lips instead of that ring around the outside. I used to just put gloss on bare lips and then be confused about where my lip went by 8pm.

Colorgram Fruity Glass Tint

How I put it on: Fingertip, pat it into the middle of the lip, press your lips together to spread it out. Don't line the edges properly — soft edges are the point.

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Then gloss, but only in the middle

WONHEE of ILLIT, Rom&nd Glasting Color Gloss — K-pop idol makeup

WONHEE · ILLIT

WONHEE again, because this is the finishing move. The gloss goes in the centre of the lip only, not out to the corners. You get a bright spot in the middle and softer colour at the edges, and that's what makes a lip look full in photos.

Gloss right to the corners flattens it and slides off in an hour. Learned that at a wedding.

02 Nutty Vague is the one I keep going back to. It's a soft milk-tea neutral so it warms up whatever tint is underneath without hiding it.

Rom&nd Glasting Color Gloss

02 Nutty Vague

Reapplying: One dab top and bottom, press. And when it wears off just redo the centre, you don't need to start over.

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The order, because I got this wrong too

Shading before blush. Brows early. Gloss dead last.

Thin base. Even things out, keep the glow.
Brows, so you can see the frame of your face before you do anything else.
Shading — hairline, nose, jaw.
Contour under the cheekbones, built up slowly.
Lip tint, patted from the middle out.
Gloss in the centre. Stop there.

If you do blush before shading you end up putting the shading on top of it and it goes grey and weird. Not a disaster, just annoying.

Anyway

None of this takes longer than what you're already doing. It's the same amount of makeup, mostly just in different places, and less of it.

If you only change one thing this week do the lip in two steps. Tint patted in, gloss in the middle. It's ten extra seconds and it's the one I noticed straight away in photos.

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Image credits: these looks reference the artists’ own public social media and are shared for editorial inspiration only. Baerry is not affiliated with, and this post is not endorsed by, the artists or their agencies.