(Diagram credit to Kandee Johnson at kandeej.com. Info from my research and the makeup-eloquent Kandee Johnson and Lisa Eldridge)

Before foundation, Marilyn would use a moisturizer such as Erno Laszlo Active pHelityl Cream (still available at: http://www.ernolaszlo.com/shop/active-phelityl-cream.html) or Vaseline. You can achieve this by using a foundation primer or good moisturizer to achieve this.

Marilyn loved Elizabeth Arden makeup products. She used Elizabeth Arden’s Pat-A-Creme foundation, as well as Erno Laszlo Duo-Phase Face Powder. Use a medium coverage foundation with a light dusting of powder to have a similar foundation look.

Marilyn’s highlight area

If you don’t have a good quality highlight, you can just use a light frosty eyeshadow and put it on the areas.

For her eyes, she’d use a brown eyeliner to make her blue eyes pop and to give a softer look. Taken from kandeej.com: “…and drew the liner like I show in the red above, and slightly below the eye-LEAVING the WHITE SPACE on the corner UNTOUCHED. This trick makes the eye look wider, in combination with drawing the top eyeliner out longer.” She’d fill in the outer corner of the eye with a white eyeliner, as well as line the lower waterline with white eyeliner, to make the eye pop. To make the eye look even nicer, she’d line above the brown line she drew with a gold liner, making a thin line and sort of blending the gold in with the brown. To make the whites of the eyes look lighter she’d put a red lip liner dot around the tear duct area. She’d cut false lashes in half and put them on the outer corner to weigh down the eye (exaggerates bedroom eyes) as well as make her lashes look longer, thicker, and to widen the eye. She’d contour with white and brown eyeshadow.

Marilyn disliked her forehead. She had very pointed eyebrows because sharp pointed arches makes it look like the forehead takes up less room. The easiest way to get these eyebrows is to pluck/wax them into this shape then fill them in with a brown pencil/shadow.

Taken from kandeej.com “She used up to 5 different red lipsticks at once to get her perfect red mouth. All reds were a bright blue-red, because the film cameras back then had a way of making everything orangey…her make-up artist would draw above the top lip curve with a white eyeliner to make it look larger and more highlighted.

kandeej.com: “Also, she extended her top lip liner out at an angle above her lower lip (take a peek at the pic above!).
*She also fully drew in the curved, rounded bow-shaped mouth on the top. And she used a darker red lipliner to shade the underside of the lower lip and the outer edges to make her lips look even larger and more “sexy-pouty”! (see the picture above of her without make-up, her lips are totally different shaped than after her make-up!)
*They would also dab a white eyeshadow in the center of her lips to make them look fuller and grab the light, as you can see in the photo above!)”

Marilyn before and after makeup

Thanks for reading! -@DailyMonroe