Diane Kruger: Modern Matte Lips Tutorial

Makeup artist Kara Yoshimoto Bua and hairstylist Marcus Francis walk us through the creation of Diane Kruger’s Hollywood glamour waves and modern matte lips.

Photography By DAVID BELLEMERE
Written By JESS BASSER SANDERS
Makeup By KARA YOSHIMOTO BUA
Hair By MARCUS FRANCIS
Nails By APRIL FOREMAN
Styled By KARLA WELCH

Channeling the classic Hollywood icons of yore, Diane Kruger cavorted around the backlot of Paramount Studios for her Violet Files cover story, playing a character that hews closely to her real self—a perfectly put-together actress flouncing around set between takes. To update the silver-screen starlet look for the present day, hairstylist Marcus Francis gave Kruger a polished wave, casually twisted into a half-up style, while makeup artist Kara Yoshimoto Bua added a fresh, modern matte lip in a punchy, crimson-tinged coral. Below, the two break down the process of perfecting the actress-off-duty look, so even if you’re not a screen siren cruising the lot, you can at least look like one.

THE MODERN MATTE LIPS

MAKEUP BY KARA YOSHIMOTO BUA

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NATURAL SKIN

To even out Kruger’s skin tone, Yoshimoto Bua began with this lightweight foundation, blended on the back of her hand before she applied with a makeup brush. “I like to do a wash of foundation first,” she says. “Then I’ll do spot coverage, so it stays light—I don’t like to cover the entire face with foundation.” To highlight and conceal, Yoshimoto Bua used two shades of Chanel’s éclat Lumière Highlighter Face Pen, the lighter shade for brightening and the darker for covering up.

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DAYS OF THE CONTOUR

After setting the foundation with a lighter shade of this powder, Yoshimoto Bua used a darker hue to contour Kruger’s cheekbones, jawline, and forehead. “The trick with using a powder to contour is that when you put the product on the brush, you want to really shake it around and pat the brush back and forth in the compact or on your hand—so that you’re evenly applying the product onto the brush—before you apply it to your face.” Yoshimoto Bua then brushed the product with a sweeping motion below Kruger’s cheekbones (in line with the tip of her nose to the top of her ear), under the jawline, and on the sides of the forehead. Next, she tapped the apples of the cheeks with Chanel’s powder blush, in coral-toned Angelique, to complement the lip.

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THE EYES HAVE IT

Yoshimoto Bua wanted to give Kruger’s lids a soft smokiness to bring out her striking blue-green eyes. She began by washing a golden brown color across the lower and upper lids, and highlighting the brow bone with the lightest shade in the compact. Next, she lined the top lid with Chanel’s waterproof eyeliner in Espresso and coated lashes—a few times—with Le Volume de Chanel Mascara.

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THE NEW MATTE LIP

Kruger and Yoshimoto Bua wanted a red lip, something modern, brighter, and matte, so they landed on a red-tinged coral. First, Yoshimoto Bua lined and defined the edge of the lips with Chanel Lèvres Precision Lip Definer in Nectarine, a softer tone, before using a brush to fill in with the deeper lipstick shade and soften the edges of the liner. The idea was to “push the pigment around to get that brightness instead of a thick layer of lipstick.”

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SEE DIANE KRUGER’S COVER SHOOT FOR THE VIOLET FILES
On set and up close with the multilingual actress and Chanel ambassador.

Get Diane Kruger’s actress off duty look with a modern matte lip tutorial at VIOLETGREY.COM