From The Straits Times    |

Photo: Glossier/Instagram 

The “boy beat” is a fairly new makeup style made popular by pop sensation Beyonce who wore this pared down look in her popular 2016 “Formation” music video. This iconic makeup look is the brainchild of Queen Bey’s makeup artist, Sir John, who has been working with the singer since 2013.

The “boy beat” look started gaining traction when Sir John shared the tidbit in an interview with Allure Magazine, where he broke down some of Beyonce’s most memorable makeup looks, and pointed out that the makeup technique he used for her “Formation” music video was called the “boy beat.”

 

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According to Sir John, he achieved the look by, “taking a soft eyeshadow to give her (Beyonce) a smokey eye, and then afterward I gave her a bit of contouring…there’s a little bit of highlight happening at the top lip and that brings attention to your pout.

There’s shimmer down the centre of your nose. So there’s contouring highlighting. There’s the serious eye.”

 

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“All it was is giving the eyes a shape, giving the cheeks a shape. I gave a lot of contour to the sides of the face…I was really looking to capture her essence and give her tons of structure to the face,” he explained.

In the past couple of months, makeup artists and content creators like YouTuber Sarah Cheung have interpreted the boy beat as a natural barely-there makeup look that embraces your skin’s natural skin tone and “flaws” like stray brow hairs, dark eye circles, freckles, pimples and dark spots, while adding a lot of structure and dimension to the face.

 

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You can think of the boybeat makeup as a no makeup-makeup look, but just more deconstructed. It takes less precision and products compared to the no makeup-makeup look that we are accustomed to.

This look is great if you are new to experimenting with makeup and don’t like the feeling of heavy makeup.

 

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Keep reading to see how you can recreate the boy beat makeup. 

 

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