'When I go out at night, I definitely want to look different than I do during the day because I’m usually wearing as little makeup as possible—a lip balm, something on my cheeks, a dab of concealer, and that’s it. Not even mascara. But I’m also lost when it comes to doing makeup on myself—I can’t do eyes at all. I’m horrible at liner and can’t do a cat eye.

Caroline Gonzalez did my look tonight—I have two events and she intentionally kept it simple for the first one so we could make it sexy for the party afterwards. We did gold on the lid and made the rest black and smudgy, plus a red lip— MAC Russian Red. It's good, right? I think the rule that you can only do an eye or a lip, but not both, is kind of over by now. Red lips are so trendy that you can do them with eyes, too—they're sort of a neutral at this point. Ultimately it all depends on the shade of red and how smoky the eye is.

But I did do super sleek hair because there is so much happening on my face. If you do big hair, plus eye makeup and lipstick, it becomes very ‘80s and too much for me. We also kept the eyebrows pretty much the same—maybe a little more defined, but still natural. I already have very strong brows, so if I do too much, I start to look a little masculine.

Because there are always photos when you dress up to go somewhere at night, you want to make sure that your body matches your face. My body is always pretty tan, so I have to make sure to contour my face with bronzer. I love the Soleil Tan de Chanel Bronzing Makeup Base because it smells wonderful and it has a little shimmer to it so it’s perfect on camera. You never want to see a shot of yourself with a white face and a tan body. No.”

—as told to ITG

Alessandra Ambrosio photographed by Annie Kreighbaum at the Harper's Bazaar Icons Celebration.