A few months ago, I stumbled upon Desi Perkins's beauty videos [1] on YouTube. Despite the YouTube star being massively popular, I had never watched her videos before and found myself completely entranced. As I made my way through her hair routines [2] and makeup tutorials, I was struck by her tips and tricks and her unique approach to makeup.
Considering just how good Perkins's makeup and hair always looks, I decided to give her routines a try. Perkins usually looks pretty glamorous, so I knew her routine would probably take a lot longer than my 10-minute face [3] and braced myself. Ahead, check out how this new routine went.
The Hair
I was fortunate enough to have two of the main tools Perkins uses in the video: a Revlon Perfect Style Maximum Shine Porcupine Round Brush [4] ($9) and a Dyson Super Sonic Blow Dryer [5] ($400). One thing that Perkins did that I found interesting was to dry the front sections of her hair first, before her baby hairs had time to curl up. I had never tried this before and found it hard to do with a large round brush, but I grabbed a travel-sized paddle brush and got to drying.
This method made the front portion of my hair look a lot better than normal, and I will probably continue to use this technique going forward. Another hair-altering tip? Always point the blow dryer down. My hair is super prone to frizz, so although basic, this tip helped tremendously. The last step was to smooth out your hair with a curling iron, which I decided to skip (I was going to be late to work!), but it would definitely have made my hair look even better. Overall, I thought Perkins's hair routine was simple but effective.
The Makeup
Unsurprisingly, Perkins's makeup routine was a lot more complicated. I decided to watch the YouTube star's latest makeup routine video, which she describes as "model skin." I was a little intimidated by the notion of skipping foundation, especially because I'm currently suffering from hormonal breakouts and was worried that this routine wouldn't be enough coverage for me. I followed along with the tutorial, hoping for the best and going as fast as I could as I prepared to head to work.
Perkins started by prepping her face with an illuminating primer and blending two different shades of liquid highlighters on her face. I did as she instructed, hoping I wouldn't look like a human disco ball. Next I rubbed a stick of cream contour into my hand to warm it up and contoured my cheekbones, nose, forehead, and temples. I don't usually contour my face before work, so this took me a lot of time.
I followed along, blending out concealer underneath my eyes and on blemishes by buffing the edges of the product with a fluffy brush. I filled in my brows, applied a brown shimmery eyeliner to my lash line and bronzer to my lower lash line, skipping my usual go-to cat eye. I finished off my eye look with a generous amount of mascara, opting to skip falsies.
While the instructions were already drastically different than how I normally do my makeup, overlining my lips [6] was the portion of the tutorial that was most outside my comfort zone. I have a very defined cupid's bow, and Perkins instructed me to fill in the portion between the peaks to make my lips look fuller. She followed up by patting a nude lipstick into her lips (so she didn't mess up her liner) and a lighter shade in the centre of her lips for added dimension.
While I mostly liked how my makeup came out, it took about twice as long as my usual routine, and I thought filling in the cupid's bow on my lips looked too obvious. However, Perkins totally changed my mind about needing full-coverage foundation. My complexion looked admittedly glowy, and now I know not to doubt this queen of beauty.
