This Mind-Blowing "Heat Map Makeup" Literally Looks Like a Filter

By Devon Abelman, Allure

   

With the weather being as unpredictable as an episode of Pretty Little Liars lately, I've been checking The Weather Channel app on my phone a lot. I've become well accustomed with the heat map, wishing I was back in my home state of Texas with the warm reds and oranges instead of the yellows and greens of chilly New York. Alexa Link, a makeup artist based in Austin, TX, must be staring at them too because she's been doing a series of heat map makeup, and I'm so into it.
  
[post_ads]For the past 488 day, Link has been participating in the #1000daysofmakeup challenge on Instagram. Every day, she posts pictures of herself with completely different makeup looks. Over the weekend, she posted her first heat map makeup look. Using colorful Sugarpill eye shadows ( Love+, Flamepoint, Butter Cupcake, Acidberry, Mochi, Velocity, 2AM, and Poison Plum, to be specific), she turned her whole face, including her ears, into a heat map.

A post shared by ALEXA LINK (@alexalink) on Jun 2, 2017 at 9:01pm PDT

She contoured her cheekbones with reds, oranges and yellows and shaded her jawline with a variety of blues. When I first saw the look come up on my Instagram feed, I thought there was a new filter I needed to try out or someone took a picture of her with an infrared camera. The colors looks too vibrant and the edges looked too perfect to be done by hand — Link's blending was that seamless. Once I realized her heat map makeup was just that — makeup — I couldn't stop staring.Of course, I had to ask Link about the method behind her madness. 

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"To deposit the color, I used flat shading brushes like the Sugarpill Large Eyeshadow Brush," she tells Allure. "And I blended the colors using fluffy blending brushes like the Sugarpill Tapered Blending & Crease Brush." Oh yeah, and she needed a lot of patience, too. "Brightly colored eyeshadows are typically more difficult to blend out so you have to work with them a little bit more," she adds.

A post shared by ALEXA LINK (@alexalink) on Jun 3, 2017 at 7:00pm PDT

"If you'd like to try the makeup at home, then I would suggest starting on the outer perimeter of your face with the cool-toned colors first because the warm shades are typically more densely pigmented and get out of control really easily."The next day, Link returned with another take on heat map makeup. She posted her first look on the Makeup Addiction subreddit, and her fellow Redditors pointed out that face heat map was inaccurate. (There wouldn't be as much blue if it were an actual heat map of her face.) With that in mind, she tweaked the look a bit.
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If you thought that these looks would be perfect for Pride, you're not wrong. Link was inspired by this month's festivities, too. She also created a rainbow spectrum look today, too, using the same blending techniques as her heat map makeup.Link is no stranger to viral makeup trends. Last month, she coined "brow carving," which looks like smoky eyes-meets-graphic liner for your arches. Now, if you go to the tagged section on her Instagram, you'll find hundreds of her fellow Instagram MUAs trying out the bold look. I have a feeling the same page will fill up with heat map makeup in the next couple days.

  

A post shared by ALEXA LINK (@alexalink) on Jun 4, 2017 at 8:57pm PDT

   

More trends taking over Instagram:

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