Happy New Year, my loves. There is something about the first of January that makes me want to sit at my little vanity, put a slow playlist on, and do my face properly, not for anyone else, just for the quiet joy of it. So I thought I would open the year the way I open most mornings: with a soft glam GRWM made for redheads like me. If you are ginger, strawberry, or somewhere in that warm copper family, this one is for you. We so rarely get tutorials that actually flatter our colouring, and I got a little tired of waiting for them, so I started filming my own.
Here is my honest philosophy first, because it changes everything: as a redhead, your skin and your hair are already doing so much. Pale, warm, freckled, a little pink in the cheeks. The mistake I made for years was fighting all of that with heavy foundation and cool-toned everything. Soft glam, to me, means working with what you already have. Less covering, more glowing. I want to still look like myself, just the version of me who slept eight hours and drank her water, which, let us be honest, is not always the real story.
The Base: Glow, Not Mask
I start skincare-first, always. A hydrating moisturiser, a little pat of something dewy on the high points, then the tiniest amount of a light-to-medium foundation pressed in with a damp sponge. Pressed, never dragged, because I actually want my freckles to peek through. They are the whole point of a redhead face and I will die on that hill. For concealer I go one shade lighter under the eyes and blend it out gently, then set only where I get shiny. That is it. A fully mattified base makes fair skin look flat and a bit ghostly, and we are chasing lit-from-within, not lit-from-a-ringlight.
Warmth, Blush, and That Coquette Flush
This is the part I get the most questions about over on my Instagram, so let me spell it out. Redheads have almost no visible brow and lash pigment, so a little warmth wakes the whole face up. I use a soft peachy-bronze on the eyes, a brown-not-black liner smudged into the lashline, and a brow gel one shade warmer than my natural. For blush, I skip cool pinks and reach for warm coral, apricot, and soft peach, placed high on the cheek and blended up toward the temple. It gives that flushed, just-came-in-from-the-cold coquette look I love. Very Parisian girl on a grey afternoon, very soft-pink at heart even when the shade itself is peach.
Lips I keep in the my-lips-but-better range: a warm rose or a your-lips brown-pink, blurred in with a finger so nothing looks harsh against fair skin. A tiny highlight on the cupid's bow, a spritz of setting mist, and I am done. Ten minutes on a real morning, twenty if I am being indulgent and lining my lips like it is 2004.
If you want to see this whole routine actually move, I film these looks properly for camera, and you can find more of my beauty and GRWM world through my links page where everything lives in one place. I would genuinely love to know your redhead-approved staples, so come and tell me. Tag your version, freckles out and glowing, and use #liviasloves so I can find you. Here is to a year of doing our faces slowly and loving what looks back at us. See you at the vanity, my darlings.