How to: Marilyn Monroe Makeup

Marilyn Monroe is known for her famous “look,” which is still widely popular today. This “look” is thanks to the beauty techniques and makeup by Allan “Whitey” Snyder. Whitey and Monroe created the perfect routine to give her a youthful and sexy complexion. From her voluminous lashes to her voluptuous red lip, she was most certainly pleasing to the eye! However, what most don’t realize is that most of these cosmetic tricks were just illusions. Now don’t get me wrong, Marilyn was most certainly naturally beautiful too, even in her brunette days as Norma Jeane. Whitey however definitely knew what he was doing to shape her eyes, lips and face into the perfect image she desired. I learned this look from information off of the following websites- Beauty and Tips, Marie Claire and Lisa Eldridge!

To start, let’s explain the makeup whitey applied to her face…

1. Whitey would apply Vaseline to her face as a moisturizer and primer.
2. He would then apply her foundation.  Marilyn’s foundation was always perfect; she never appeared to have a blemish or wrinkle of any kind!
3. Next he shaped/contoured her face. He would shape most of her face with a powder slightly darker than her natural skin tone, and would apply this beneath her cheekbones, on her temples and a little beneath her jaw line.
4. Then he would use blush on her cheeks and a little on her nose. Marilyn had gotten a nose job, but still preferred her nose to be contoured to slim/shorten it down further. She also only used pink and coral blushes because she believed it looked more “fresh.”
5. Whitey would then apply Vaseline as a highlighter to her forehead and cheekbones. Marilyn loved moisturize, because she understood that dewy skin equaled youth.
6. Next he blended a powder lighter than her natural skin tone, he applied this beneath her eyes and above her cheekbones to really brighten her face. Her also applied a little of this powder above her lip and on her chin.
7. Once her eyes and lips were complete, he would finish the face off by applying a small birth mark to her cheek…yes, this was fake.

Next let’s discuss the routine for her eyes. Marilyn’s eyes involved a lot of white.  They would start by…

1. Blending white matte shadow from the lid all the way to the brow bone.  
2. Then they would go in with a matte, medium brown shadow, and contour the crease of her eye. They did to define her crease, but not so much that it would overpower and look smoky.
3. Next to enter is more white shadow, except this time- shimmery! This was applied to the lid, brow bone and tear duct of the eye. Again, she loved a bright face, because she t believed it was youthful.
4. After this Whitey would use a pencil (not gel) for some brown liner (not black!) on her upper eye. He would give her a slight wing too.
5. Then they curled her lashes and applied the falsies. To create a more natural and sexy look, they only applied fake lashes to the end of her lash line. To do this they simply cut a lash strip in half. Then they applied mascara.
6. To help make her lashes look even longer and fuller, Whitey would take brown shadow or liner, and smudge a light line beneath her eye, and wing it out. He would fill the space from the wing to her eye with white liner, to create an illusion of a shadow from her lashes.  Most people see this shadow in pictures, but don’t realize it’s actually fake!
7. Next he would extend the white liner into her actual water line, and draw a red dot with lip liner inside her tear duct to help make her eyes look brighter.
8. Lastly, to fill in her brows, he would use shadow or a pencil, and shape them to be full and pointed. Her brows were always sharply pointed upward because Marilyn felt she had a large forehead, and that this helped diminish its size.

Now let’s discuss her lips- those infamous plump red lips!

1. Whitey sometimes used up to 5 different shades of lipstick to achieve this look! Also, during this time period, the color from real life to the screen was not yet very great. Most colors appeared much lighter and brighter than in everyday life. Sometimes to create a very realistic red look, Whitey used deep shades of pink instead of red, because red often looked orange on camera/film. (See examples in image below: left is dark pinks, which appears red and right is red, which appears orange)
2. They would start by lining Marilyn’s lips with a dark red/pink liner. They would define her cupids bow, and extend her upper lip a little further out than natural to make her lips look larger.
3. Next he would fill in the corners of her lips, lower lip and upper lip with another dark red or pink lipstick.
4. He would leave space in the middle for a lighter red/pink lipstick to help create the illusion of plumper lips.
5. After applying all of this, they would use a tissue to blot her lips, and then go back in and add more lipstick again. The layers of lipstick also helped her lips look fuller.
6. Whitey would then apply a light powder to the center of her bottom lip, to highlight it, which made her bottom lip look extra plump.
7. To finish off the look, they would use lots of lip gloss to make her lips look extra highlighted, full and shiny. 

And there is it- the makeup tricks to look just like Ms. Monroe!

Here is a look at some Marilyn Monroe makeup I did myself, on my friend Kelly! (See below)