Jennifer Lopez Says She "Underpaints" Her Makeup — So I Followed Her Tutorial And Was Surprised At The Results
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I love nothing more than when a celebrity shares some insight into their life. I'm talking about anything from what's in their fridge to their makeup routine. So, when Jennifer Lopez shared a how-to video explaining how she achieves her go-to glowy, bronzed makeup look — you know I watched it about five times and needed to recreate it on myself.
In the video, the "Jenny from the Block" singer first brings viewers through her skincare routine. From there, she goes into explaining how she achieves her famous glow which involves a lot of "underpainting" — a technique that has gained popularity on TikTok recently — which involves contouring, concealing, and putting blush on before your foundation.
Here's how it went down when I followed J.Lo's contour technique.
In the video, first Jennifer applies concealer under her eyes, around her nose, lips, and in between her brows. The key here is that Jennifer used a concealer that is around the same shade as her skin since this part is mainly for brightening the complexion.
On clean moisturized skin, I did the same. The only concealer I had handy was one that was lighter than my skin tone so instead, I used the MAC Cosmetics Studio Fix Every-Wear All-Over Face Pen that allowed me to brighten certain areas of my face as J.Lo does.
From there, J.Lo uses a cream bronzer and applies it above her cheekbones. "I used to [apply contour] right in the cheekbone, but now, I realize if I do it a little above, it lifts the face a little more," she explained in her tutorial.
I watched this part of the video several times because while I do love a nice contour, it seemed like she was applying A LOT of bronzer to her face. But when in Rome, am I right?
I usually feel for the area of my cheek that's right in the middle of my teeth to contour, but to follow in J.Lo's footsteps, I applied my Dibs Beauty Desert Island Duo Stick to draw a line above my cheekbones.
Jennifer then applies the same cream bronzer around her hairline, extending the color to the outer-third perimeter of her forehead and under her jawline. I too dipped my brush into my bronzer stick and traced my forehead and jawline as well.
J.Lo's contouring didn't stop there — she then took a small brush and contoured her nose by bringing the bronzer down both sides of the bridge of her nose, traced her upper and lower lip (to make her lips look poutier, she explained), AND then brought the same bronzer down the front of her neck.
"I call this the lightbulb," the singer explained in the video. "We darken that so that it doesn't light up, like 'look at this chin!'"
I once again dipped my brush into my bronzer stick and brought the color down underneath my chin and down the middle of my neck.
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I always make sure to bring my makeup below my jawline so I don't have any demarcation lines, BUT never have I put this much makeup on my neck. It felt weird, TBH!
I then took my bronzer stick directly to my nose. I struggled with this step, as you can tell because my nose contour lines were not straight and were actually quite messy-looking. Next time, I'd use a smaller brush — like J.Lo used — for this part, but I didn't have one at the moment. From there, I took the contour stick and lightly traced my upper and lower lips to make my lips appear fuller.
I was trying to trust the process here. 🫠
Now for foundation. In her tutorial, J.Lo explains how she uses three different foundation shades. She mixes two medium shades on her hand before she blends them over all that brightening and contouring with a stippling brush.
Jennifer then takes things a step further by using a lighter foundation shade on areas she previously brightened — around her under-eye area, on the sides of her nose, and in the middle of her eyebrows.
The foundation I currently use matches my skin tone so I just used what I had. I applied a few pumps on my hand J.Lo style and swirled my stippling brush in the foundation before lightly applying it to my face. I'm not going to lie, this step felt very weird because I felt like I was painting over all the work I just did.
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From there, Jennifer applied cream blush onto the apples of her cheeks before adding a tiny bit of finishing powder to mattify her T-zone.
Although J.Lo used a peach-colored blush, I applied the other end of my Dibs Beauty Desert Island Duo stick — which is a rose-colored cream blush — to the apples of my cheeks...
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...before going in with some pressed powder to set everything.
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Here are the final looks! (Note: J.Lo added some eye makeup, lipstick, and lipgloss in her tutorial, but I just followed her face makeup routine.)
When I first watched J.Lo's tutorial — and other underpainting videos on TikTok — I was always skeptical of how the final look turned out, especially in person because I usually contour and brighten the more common way, so it was hard for me to wrap my head around this reverse process.
To give some context, my typical contouring routine is applying foundation all over my face first, then concealer under my eyes, around my lip area, and under my cheekbones to highlight it.
From there I take my cream bronzer and lightly carve out my cheekbones. The only reason I use bronzer on my forehead is none other than to add some warmth there. I never contour my nose or my jawline. I blend everything as I apply each product, and lastly, I add my blush and highlighter.
It felt a little weird to do the reverse and apply my brightening and contour products first. Following J.Lo's routine, I specifically felt like I was applying SO much bronzer, and I honestly hated putting that much product on my jawline and neck. Yes, my jaw and neck did appear more sculpted and snatched when they were contoured this way, but in my opinion, it still wasn't worth drawing on all that bronzer.
By the time I got to the foundation step, I felt like I was painting over all the work I just did — despite still making sure to lightly apply it. Despite all of this, I have to admit that I was genuinely surprised at how glowy and bronzed my face looked once I was finished.
The end result didn't look like I had on as much makeup as I really did. I noticed the main difference with my cheekbone contouring. My cheeks look more sculpted compared to when I usually contour, and I think that's because I had a heavier hand when following J.Lo's routine.
I think I'll take a few pointers from J.Lo — such as not being afraid to go dark with my contour — but I don't think I'll follow this underpainting technique again because it just felt like a lot more work and too much makeup for my liking.
