Performer Make-Up Tips for Your Child's Dance Recital

Make-up is an important part of costuming for any children's dance recital. Because of the bright lights on stage, without make-up the performers don't clearly have faces they just look like blank eggs. Make-up allows the emotional quality of your child's performance to shine through. Make-up for the stage is different than make-up for regular use. The goal is to create a natural and age appropriate look when viewed from the audience, which is not the same as what you will see up close. For girls Lipstick or tinted lip glass, lip liner, and eye-liner are absolutely necessary. Eye shadow and blush are optional, while mascara and foundation are unnecessary. For boys, some make-up should also be used in order to create facial definition; this is done using neutral tones in the professional theatre, and parents of serious performing children should get used to the idea, while also being aware of the cultural ramifications that may exist for boys participating in dance recitals in some locales. For age appropriate dance recital make-up do the following:

1. Always use lip-liner. It has good staying power and creates significant facial feature definition. Use a pink or neutral tone slightly darker than the child's natural lips. Do not use a very dark color with a light lipstick.

2. Use a lip gloss or lip stick with long staying power for the child's lips. Consider that they will be participating in a physical activity and may lick their lips in nervousness. You want the make-up to actually stay on for the performance.

3. Always use some sort of cheek color. The quickest and easiest solution is to blend a small amount of lipstick into the skin under the cheek bone to highlight the area. Make sure you do this as a gentle oval -- a straight line or a round circle will look weird and unnatural.

4. Parents interested in more advanced make-up for their child's dance recital can use a darker blush under the cheekbone and a lighter one on the top of the cheek bone to make their child's bone structure stand out even more.

5. For eyeliner you may use brown or black. You do not need to line the child's entire eye: three quarters of the way in to the outside is enough for both lids in most cases.

6. Do not line the inside of the lower lid. The outside is fine for stage distance and it is safer and more comfortable for your child.

7. If your child ex performing in an extremely large space, use eyeshadow to further highlight the eye by placing dark shadow in the crease of the eye and a very light, reflective shadow at the high outside.

8. For extremely large spaces use a bit of neutral tone (similar but slightly different from child's natural skin tone) shadow to highlight the nose.

9. Always give the make-up for your child's dance recital a test run to make sure you can put it on correctly and that it is comfortable for your child.

10. Always put the make-up for your child's dance recital on after they get in costume to avoid damaging the costumes or smearing the make-up.