5 Reasons You NEED Professional Stage Makeup!
Every year a new crop of young eager dancers perform on competition stages all over the world and so there will always be the question, “why do I have to wear stage makeup?” and “how dark does it need to be?”. Dance moms ask me these questions ALL THE TIME because they feel that “makeup is makeup” and stage makeup seems to be yet another “special” item to buy and add to the bottomless dance bag. (the bottomless dance bag-now, that’s a great product!)
Are there really good reasons for buying and using professional stage makeup or is the studio owner/director/choreographer just trying to pull one over you?
Before we discuss, take our poll:
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If you are a competitive dancer, college level dancer, or professional dancer you need to be wearing professional stage makeup for the following 5 reasons:
1) Distance between the performer and the audience - When I am sitting in the audience, I am too far away from you to see what is going on in your face unless you enhance your features with makeup. Your makeup actually needs to be dark enough for your features to be visible to the first 8 - 12 rows of the theater. Many street makeup brands do not intensify when layered - they stay one color no matter how much you put on. Professional stage makeup is versatile because it is highly-pigmented so that you can wear a little or a lot, depending on how you much you apply - the less you apply, the lighter it is - the more you apply, the darker it gets.
2) Intense stage lighting - Stage lighting can really “flatten” your features and take away all of the dimensions that help the audience see your facial expressions clearly. Most street makeup brands are limited in their amount of pigment and just cannot get dark enough to be seen under stage lighting. Great professional stage makeup will be highly-pigmented so that it can be seen under colorful, intense stage lighting - it won’t disappear when the lights hit you.
3) Decorative costuming - Your performance makeup is part of your costume. If you were to put on a long evening gown, have your hair in an up-do, put on your high heel shoes and then put NOTHING on your face, you would look like you were missing something. Your face would be overshadowed by your outfit and would look drab. We NEVER want our costume to overshadow our face. EVER! Professional stage makeup is primarily earth-toned colors to adapt to every costume change, every lighting situation and every skin tone.
4) Sweat-factor - When we are performing on stage, under intense stage lighting, dancing our butts off, we will sweat (and as I used to tell my dancers - if you are not sweating then you are not working hard enough!). There is nothing more uncomfortable than having a bead of sweat roll down into your eye while you are dancing and having your eye sting like crazy because all of your eye makeup is now IN your eye - making it tear even more - smearing mascara, eyeliner, and eye shadow - all while you are ON STAGE! Many street makeup brands are either NOT sweat-resistant or are chemically altered to be “long lasting”. You are eating chemicals (in lipsticks) and absorbing them into your skin. High quality, professional stage makeup will be naturally sweat-resistant and will not irritate sensitive eyes or skin.
5) Protect the skin - Professional stage makeup should be highly-pigmented, hypo-allergenic (no known allergens used), non-comedogenic (non-clogging to the pores, so no break outs), and as NATURALLY sweat-resistant as possible.
Hey, guess what, you are in luck…JAM cosmetics professionally designed performance makeup kits are ALL THAT!!! And more!!!
Jessica Dupont writes the DanceMakeupBlog, she is a former Professional NYC Dancer and Makeup Artist. She also writes “The Beauty Blog” for DANCE.COM and is the owner and founder of JAM cosmetics, the ULTIMATE performance makeup resource for dancers. Follow her on Twitter
