Behind the Scenes Styling with Amy Walsh Kern

This is the second month in a row I get to work with a natural beauty! What fun! For April’s issue of Minnesota Monthly, we profile WATCH executive director, Amy Walsh Kern for our “Style Profile” section . Amy, however, is a little bit different than last month’s Style Profile subject, Stephanie Shrimp. Amy has beautiful freckles to work with, and her coloring leans more towards softer, coral shades.

Makeup

In order to give Amy’s freckles their due and still give her skin a finished look for the photos, I use Laura Mercier tinted moisturizer all over. If you already own a favorite foundation and don’t want to purchase a new one, yet you want to lighten up your coverage, just blend in a little moisturizer to the liquid foundation or stick foundation, then apply as usual.

After the foundation is applied, I use a darker pressed powder to act as a light bronzer everywhere the sun would normally hit the face first. You could easily use your bronzer if you have one.

To give Amy a beautiful glow, I dab a little of Benefit’s Highbeam (literally, just a little bit) along the tops of her cheekbones, brow bones, and on her eyelids (This is a good trick for a natural take on the eyes in place of using a shadow).

Amy’s cheeks have light dusting on the apples with Nars blush in Orgasm. This is a great color on most skin tones.

Her lips were a custom shade created on-site just for her, but for a similar take you could do The Lip Slip found on JCrew’s website . So pretty!

The final piece de résistance for Amy is the application of a single coat of mascara on her beautiful lashes, as they are already thick, long, and beautiful.

Hair

Again, being the natural beauty that Amy is, I kept her hair modern and simple.

At her roots I apply a little root lifting powder—try Bumble and Bumble’s White Hair Powder . I then spray the ends with hairspray and run my fingers through it at the same time to give a slight pieciness to the effect.

Please note that I direct you to Sephora for most product recommendations in this post. As I am in restock mode for my kit for work right now, I tend to take care of a good chunk of it at Sephora so I am “in the mode” if you will. The Mall of America has a great Sephora location next to Macy’s on the second floor if you are interested. The good news is you can take home samples of just about everything along with an informative slip of paper to guide you on the product you just sampled. This is definitely not the only place I go, but they are certainly an important stop and I want to share the love.