Celebrity makeup artist Sofia Tilbury reveals how to apply foundation perfectly for glowing skin

Celebrity makeup artist and niece of beauty icon Charlotte Tilbury, Sofia Schwarzkopf-Tilbury, has shared her secrets to mastering your foundation application and achieve glowing skin. 

The British beauty guru gave her nod of approval for using your fingers to apply foundation and championed her aunt’s mega-popular Beautiful Skin Foundation, which has taken the beauty world by storm with seven units sold every minute.   

In a live tutorial with Mecca Beauty on Instagram, Sofia gave her best tips and tricks for using the much-hyped foundation that comes in 30 different shades to give your skin a flawless finish.  

In the how-to clip, the 28-year-old makeup artist prepped her skin with a serum, eye cream and moisturiser and dabbed the Beautiful Skin Foundation on her cheek, chin and forehead with her fingers before blending with a brush. 

‘With applying foundation, I think it’s very personal, a lot of the time I like to use my fingers when first applying it,’ she said. 

‘I know there’s a lot of women out there that like to just apply it with their fingers which is totally fine, but I think you can get a really smooth finish when using a brush.’ 

She advised using a soft brush, nothing too stiff, to blend the foundation upwards in circular motions. 

When it comes to concealer, Sofia said to use it sparingly and shared how to pick the right shade. 

‘I feel like makeup has changed recently and people really went for concealer and now I feel like you don’t need as much to give that brightening, dewy glow effect,’ she said.   

‘I tend to go two shades lighter to have a brightening effect.’

She places it under the inner corner of the eye and the outer corner and blends it out with her finger and a small brush.  

Sofia then recommended a colour correcting powder for dark circles or under-eye pigmentation. 

‘I use the colour corrector on most celebrities just to kind of create more brightness underneath the eyes and even out skin tone,’ she said. 

‘The way you can do it which I think is helpful for people who have never used them before is to use it underneath your concealer and build the concealer on top. I use the brush and then I also like to use my fingers.’

For blemishes and ‘really big annoying red spots’, Sofia suggested applying concealer to the area and setting with a powder so it ‘doesn’t move or budge’.  

Sofia swears by using powder to set her makeup and once again was a cheerleader for her aunt’s airbrush flawless finish powder, one of which is sold every minute. 

‘The way I would use this is with a sculpting brush and I would use it down the T-Zone – this is where you don’t want to be oily or too shiny because you can end up looking a little sweaty,’ she said.  

Sofia finishes the skin with a blush to the apple of her cheeks and bronzer which she applies liberally to her face and neck. 

‘There’s different ways you can use bronzer but I kind of like to contour and then brush out, so, I’ll use it underneath the cheekbone and then brush it outwards,’ she said. 

‘To create a sun-kissed effect on the skin I like to bring it across the nose. I also like to use my neck to match it because you don’t want to look too dark on the face and then have a really light neck.’ 

Sofia is one of beauty’s biggest rising stars working with many A-list stars and supermodels including Salma Hayek, Minnie Driver, Irina Shayk and Candice Swanepoel and was backstage at the Paris Couture shows just last week.