How to save on Airbrush Makeup: discounts, coupons and seasonal specials.

In this post I would like to share some practical advice on how to save money on airbrush makeup. Whether you are a consumed professional or just a professional consumer, I hope you will find some of these tips useful as you prepare to invest in this wonderful, still relatively new makeup media.

Tip one: Brand Mailing lists

Subscribing to mailing lists can pay big!

It is always a good and inexpensive idea to subscribe to a brand's mailing list, and to their Facebook pages and Twitter accounts. Airbrush makeup companies are still struggling to establish themselves in the mainstream of makeup marketing, so they still use their mailing lists a lot to promote special deals for their subscribers. If there was a competition for who offers the best deals on their list, Luminess Air would certainly win the prize, with constant sales going on for their subscriber that will allow them to get truly remarkable discounts and often free shipping on top. They used to send $25 coupons to subscribers who had not bought with them for a while, but now they seem to have settled on general mega sales that will include  everything from equipment to full kits and from foundation to skincare. Runner up for deal frequency would have to be Dinair, although their special are more often than not geared at new customers who will get extra products for buying a full kit. Range wide sales are extremely rare (Black Friday being the exception), and equipment and skincare sales are practically non existent. On the more professional oriented sites, Temptu Pro has a newly restyled website, and a good few specials have been popping up of late, so this is certainly a list you will not want to miss, while Kett's specials are extremely rare.  

Tip Two (Pro Tip): Makeup Stores

This may seem counterintuitive, but some makeup stores do offer the best deals around, even beating the manufacturer's own prices. Take Camera Ready Cosmetics for example: they offer a low price guarantee on most of their products, they have a remarkable Pro Discount of 20%, their shipping charges are lower and their processing time faster than most of the manufacturers out there. They also have periodical specials that will allow you to save even more.  So once again, joining the mailing list of several online makeup stores could save you quite a bit of cash.

A recent special from CRCMakeup.com

Tip Three: Bloggers

Following bloggers on Youtube and other social media may still be very worthwhile, although blogger power has been waning more and more in the last year. New companies used to flood the most influential bloggers with free product in exchange for reviews, and the bloggers themselves would then turn these goodies into giveaway prizes, but this strategy seems to have been more or less abandoned right now. A notable exception is Belletto Studio: with special discount codes and coupons associated with popular bloggers, their followers could get remarkable saving on their steep list prices. For example just a few weeks ago fans of Xparkage could get one of their "Ultimate Skin Secrets Starter Kit" for a laughable $99 instead of the "regular" $430 price. 

Tip Four: Ebay

Of course there is always Ebay. Most of the times sellers are reliable and honest, however you should always keep in mind that even airbrush makeup has an expiry date, and that overstock sold by Ebay seller at discounted prices is often old batches that went into clearance. So be careful what you purchase, and don't hesitate to ask the seller for expiration dates or production dates. One way to see how old the product may be is to look at the pictures: do they show the latest graphics or packaging for the product, or are they showing old merchandise? All the major brands, from Temptu to OCC, to Dinair and Kett have updated their graphics and packaging in the last two years, and you can check their websites to see if what's being sold on ebay matches.

Tip Five (Pro Tip): Equipment Manifacturers

If you wish to save considerably on airbrush equipment, please consider this: most makeup brands do not manufacture their own equipment, but order it from a third party (a professional airbrush maker, regularly distributed by most traditional airbrush suppliers) who will impress the makeup brand logo on their equipment. I am not going to go into details here as I do not wish to make any enemies, but have a look around at the Sparmax SP-35 gun for example. Now do a quick search among makeup brands, and find out how much more it is going to cost you to have the exact same gun with their logo stamped on it where Sparmax's own would be. The same applies to a lot of compressors, although the main three or four makeup brands produce their own exclusively...

Sparmax SP-35 airbrush... where have I seen you before...

Video: Airbrush Makeup How to Eyeshadow with Luminess Air

Demonstrating 3 classic Luminess Air Eyeshadow Sets: Ore, Evening Sari and Smokey Eyes

Luminess "Ore" Duo- 100% unretouched Picture

Luminess Air is one of the most popular airbrush makeup brands aimed specifically at consumers. The brand offers a wide range of eyeshadow colors that are sometimes paired in sets of two or three. Luminess eye shadows have a very low viscosity which makes them easy to clean as they leave very little residue in your airgun, and which renders them very blendable and very sheer on application. Professional MUAs may find these very characteristics a bit limiting, but then again these products are directed at the average consumer, who will find them very easy to use.

Don't forget to check the special sales at www.luminessair.com. The company keeps renewing their specials and you can find some really good deals if you subscribe to their newsletter. If you are looking into buying a kit, definitely go for the 3 speed model, which will allow more versatility for jobs like eyeshadow.

Luminess "Evening Sari" Trio, 100% unrethouched picture

Luminess "Smokey Eyes" Duo, 100% unretouched picture

AIRBRUSH MAKEUP 101: Everything you need to know in just over 5 minutes!

LET'S START FROM THE VERY BEGINNING...

We are very happy to post a comprehensive, no bull, no time wasted video introduction to airbrush makeup in just over 5 minutes!

This perhaps should have been our very first post, but because of the amount of information to convey it took us a very long time to put it together. While it is intended for those who have heard little or nothing about airbrush makeup before, it may be interesting to check out and see if there are any gaps in our -or your, lol- basic knowledge of this ever growing technique.

When you learn a new way of doing things and you like it, often you tend to stick with what you've become used to and you're comfortable with. This is perfectly natural, however you may be missing out on a whole bunch of possibilities. A lot of people for example start with silicone based products and they don't know much about water based lines, or vice versa.

I started this blog with the ambition of finding out as much as possible about the whole spectrum of airbrush makeup possibilities. If you're reading this, I hope you'll come along for this long journey of discovery...

The Best Airbrush Makeup Videos: Beauty Makeup

An awesome, time saving Playlist!

I'll just come right out and say it: good video tutorials on airbrush makeup are few and hard to find. I have been researching YouTube for years now and I realized that most airbrush tutorials out there are little more than lengthy, less than gripping unboxing reports with a few unfocused demonstrations thrown in here and there.

Most of them are not even HD, so you can't even tell exactly what the makeup is actually doing to the skin, and then there's this habit of actually speeding up the video during spraying, in order to leave more room for totally useless descriptions that one can find pretty much on any Company website.

So this is where my "heart of gold" comes in: I just created a playlist on my channel of the best tutorials I could find. The most useful, right to the point, no BS videos out there actually TEACHING something, and saving you the hours I had to waste trying to sift through the useless stuff.

This first playlist is dedicated to Beauty how to's. It features a quite a few videos by official brands, but also a few gurus sharing tips and demonstrating techniques. I will add to it and update it as soon as I discover more deserving videos, or as soon as they are made. In the meantime of course I am working on my second tutorial, which shall be out soon.

Enjoy!

Here's the link to the Playlist:
THE BEST AIRBRUSH TUTORIALS: BEAUTY MAKEUP

Airbrush Makeup Primer: How To and Review

As we are getting ready to publish our first video, I thought we might explore the first step in any beauty routine: skin preparation. While it is true that water based is the lightest makeup imaginable, and can in many cases be applied without  primer, I have found that some skin types react feeling -and looking- a little dry after application. While silicon based makeup is notoriously "softer" than water based, it also can feel tight if applied directly. The truth is that not only every body's skin is different, but the composition and moisture levels vary in time for each person according to a number of factors like age, health, weather and so on. Keeping all that in mind, here's a few "rules" for optimal, professional results:

1: Always moisturize with a non oily, light moisturizer, especially in the periocular area, where the finest lines always lurk even on very young skin.

2: Wait 10 minutes between moisturizer application and makeup. This will give the skin time to absorb any excess.

3: Use primer sparingly on dry patches, large pores or problem areas. Wait another 5 minutes before proceeding to makeup.

Product Review: Moist and Dewy by Dinair

Copyright by Airbrushmakeup.com

Wonderful Dinair has an airbrushable product called "Moist and Dewy". It is a clear oily substance (squalene oil)  that comes with every airbrush kit and it is truly great in its simplicity: you can use it before or after makeup, or even mix it with the makeup itself for a dewier finish. I personally don't like using it before because it may make the makeup somewhat unstable, but I think it is wonderful after application because not only it gives the makeup a totally natural, glowing look, but it can also be used on key spots to create the most natural highlights imaginable. "Moist and Dewy" must be used very sparingly, as a little does go a very long way: two drops is usually enough for most.

Dinair also has several "traditional" priming products, all of which I have tried and all of which I heartily recommend, the best being the Line Diffusing Emulsion. A little pricey, but truly great.You can find them all at this link:

Dinair Skincare Line


MORE UPDATES AND REVIEWS COMING SOON...