It's one thing to get yourself looking nice for a YouTube video or a Facebook live, but
there is something about where you see yourself on Skype, or Zoom, or FaceTime that usually
makes people just go, "Ehhh!"
Well, hello and welcome back, or if this is your first time here, welcome.
My name is Kat Elizabeth.
I'm an active business owner and online course creator, and I'm here to give you all of the
resources and confidence I can so that you can go after your dream career.
Now, something that I get asked a lot, mostly because, as some of you know, I teach makeup
and I work with a lot of freelancers and entrepreneurs, and they all struggle with how they look on
video calls.
It's one thing to get yourself looking nice for a YouTube video or a Facebook live, but
there is something about when you see yourself on Skype, or Zoom, or FaceTime, that usually
makes people just go, "Ehhh!," And it can be really distracting.
Obviously you don't attend to give a crap if it's with your friends and family, like
whatever, they've seen worse.
But if you are using this to chat with a potential agent, to pitch to a potential client, or
to coach someone who's meant to be taking you seriously, well then there could be an
issue.
One, it's how they perceive you, which is actually a smaller part of the issue, because
the bigger part of the issue is how it affects your confidence.
If you don't feel good about how you look and you're distracted every time you look
into that thumbnail and just cringe, you're not going to be present and giving them your
best.
That is why I'm going to be talking you through my five top tips for looking better on video
calls.
Number one is lighting, lighting, lighting.
You actually can't do anything to override bad lighting.
There is no amount of makeup and her hair and wardrobe magic that is going to help you
look better if you're in bad lighting.
If you are someone that is going on video calls all the time, you need to sort this
out.
You need to set yourself up in a location where you know that no matter what time of
day it is, you're always going to have what you need.
The best source of lighting is obviously natural light, but that is not always an option because
of where we live or work, also if you're doing the call at night.
One thing that I do is I have a little mini ring light that I have on my desk.
Now, this is nowhere near as good as the ring light that I'm using right now for my YouTube
videos, but it is portable, it's small, and I can move it around even if I'm changing
desks and things, and it's not this huge drama.
It's just my absolute backup that helps just light my face and helped separate me from
the background when I'm on a call.
Something else you can do is make sure that your desktop's wallpaper is white or a very
pale color and that you have the brightness turned up, and then just to put your sort
of your previous screen of the cal, a little bit smaller, and then you'll have this kind
of like a pretend ring light.
You'll have the white around the outside providing a little bit of even lighting directly onto
your face.
Then obviously, other things like above lighting, real ring lights, all of that, but that can
get a little bit crazy, so my number one tip would be to get some sort of led light or
too little LED lamps that you can sit either side of your screen and it's going to make
all the difference.
Now if you're doing this from your phone, you can always get one of those little portable
selfie ring lights for your phone.
I'll link to those below.
They're not super powerful, but they're enough that they'll give your face an nice glow.
That is just way more flattering than if you've got nothing.
Tip number two is to de clutter your backdrop.
Having all sorts of stuff going on in the background does actually detract from how
you look.
It just automatically makes you look less professional.
It can also affect how the camera is focusing on you.
If you're too close to a backdrop and there's heaps of stuff going on, your camera, your
lens may actually focus more on what's behind you than on you.
My number one tip is clear out as much clutter as you can.
I love a good lifestyle backdrop where you've got a few key pieces in the background.
It might say a little bit about you or your business.
That's totally fine.
Then try and separate yourself from the background so that your camera can focus just on you
and provide that little bit of background blur behind.
That's just immediately going to make you look more professional.
Number three is the camera itself.
Now, obviously if you're using your phone, then you're stuck with whatever camera is
built into your phone.
But if you aren't using a desktop computer and you're not happy with the quality of your
webcam, then just upgraded.
The built-in ones are okay, but they're not amazing, and I find that they don't have the
amazing autofocusing ability and and the ability to create a little bit of depth of field that
the separate ones do.
For instance, I've got a little baby Logitech one that cost me less than a hundred bucks,
actually way less than a hundred bucks, and it is high definitely, so it provides really
high quality recordings.
You can actually use it to record normal videos, not just to hop on a video call.
It just, again, is so much more flattering on your face, because it's not blurry.
It tends to work well in low light.
Again, even if you don't have that much light, it's going to be more forgiving.
It's just worth the investment, again, if you are someone that is using video calls
a lot for your career.
Number four, it might seem like an obvious one, but wardrobe choices.
Certain things just look better on camera than other things.
My general rules are to stick to block colors, or if you're going to use a pattern, make
sure it's a large print.
Anything that's too small can make the camera go blurry and a little fuzzy, like again,
it doesn't actually look like the print does in real life, so little spots, little checks,
little stripes, and they're also really distracting.
Ultimately, you want people to be focusing on your face, not your outfit, so generally
the cleaner the outfit, the more they're going to focus on your face.
Same when it comes to busy necklines and things.
If you're a girl, you probably know what a cowl neck is, where it kind of is all sloppy.
Anything that can move around too much, that shows too much skins, so if you've got something
that looks too low cut.
Obviously, don't wear anything that's completely strapless because it can look like your ... If
I did this, suddenly I look like I'm naked.
You just want to make sure that it's something that you would be happy for people to see
you wearing in real life, as well.
Like if this was a face to face meeting, what would you normally wear?
Don't think that just cause you're on video, you can step it down that much.
Facebook Lives kind of tend to be a different thing if you're talking to your audience and
they know you well, but if this is a client or a potential employer or something, then
obviously just dress the part.
Finally, number five is makeup.
Now, there's so much I can say about makeup because I am a makeup teacher and I'm going
to have separate videos on where we'll really break this down more.
But ultimately, you can get away with wearing a little bit more makeup on a video call,
because the quality tends to remove a lot of detail and it actually looks like you're
wearing a less than you are.
A few things that can help is using some bronzer to contour your face, because we can become
very two dimensional when at the quality of the call is fairly low and you just might
want to bring that shape back into your face.
Definitely don't skip the concealer, because our number one thing is usually about the
dark circles under the eyes.
Just keep in mind that you are in close up, so make sure you actually check your makeup
closely before you get on the camera.
Make sure there's no clumps, blend out your eyeshadow shadow nicely, and again, don't
wear makeup that you wouldn't wear in real life.
I don't recommend just putting on a really bold lip, because you're like, "Oh, it's a
video, so I'm just going to be a bit ..." No, it's still just a normal meeting, so look
like yourself.
But you can just wear that a little bit more makeup.
And so if you are concerned that you look tired or haggard, then wear slightly more
foundation than you normally would.
And don't skip the blush.
Please, people.
I think I need to create a tee shirt on this.
Obviously, I'm talking to the girls, so you guys, it's okay.
You don't want to wear any makeup, totally get it.
But for the girls, the blush is a thing that just brings the color back into your cheeks
and makes you look more fresh and healthy, and it can make such a big difference on camera
so you don't look so tired, because we often look really washed out, especially on video
calls.
That's enough on makeup.
I will have some other videos coming on camera friendly makeup soon, but I hope these tips
helped you feel a little bit more confident on your next video call.
If you have any other tips, be sure to leave them in the comments below.
Otherwise, just tell me what your favorite one was, and don't forget to subscribe so
you don't miss out on any future weekly videos.
All right, thanks for watching.
Bye for now.