Concealer is one of those fantastic makeup products that can make a huge difference in your beauty game.
By making our dark circles disappear and brightening our under eyes we not only look like we've had a good night's sleep, but we also make our eyes look brighter and whiter, and along the way make ourselves look younger.
When it's done correctly that is.
The information out there can be super confusing though. Using the wrong shade of concealer can make your under-eyes look grey and heavy, making you look tired or making you look white around the eyes.
The wrong weight of concealer can be really aging.
So let's see how to choose a concealer:
Get The Color Right
The first big mistake girls make is getting the color all wrong.
Ideally you want to look the same color from the hairline to your chest. If your concealer is too pale you wind up having that weird, 2 toned look where your under eyes flare white and your face looks tanned.
As we lose some of the volume from under our eyes the area hollows out and sucks in shadows, making the under eye look darker than it is. By making the under eye area just a little lighter you can create the illusion that the shadow isn't there, and that the face is all one color.
Color Correct It
Putting an ivory or porcelain toned concealer over dark circles won't make them disappear, it will make them look a flat, sickly grey. A yellow based concealer placed over dark circles will make them look a sickly green grey, like the tail end of a bad bruise.
Think of mixing paint colors together. if you take a deep blue/grey and add a pale creamy white you just get a paler version of grey.
If you take that same deep blue/grey tone and mix in yellow you get a paler version of a greenish grey.
Neither are flattering.
If you have dark circles that need erasing, instead of reaching for an ivory hued concealer, neutralize them with a color corrector. Pink and peach tones will cancel out the blue/grey under your eyes.
Get The Weight Right
If you get your makeup tips from Instagram and YouTube you probably are hearing about baking your concealer. This is an old drag queen trick to lighten and lift, and it's great. For Drag Queens.
Extreme contouring and baking the makeup are great drag makeup tricks to take a man's stronger, heavier face and refine and reshape it into more classically feminine looking features. But its really intense and really heavy makeup.
Much drag makeup is done for nighttime viewing - in clubs and reviews where the lighting is low, which seems to escape the IG/YT makeup crowd. Getting heavy handed with weighty concealers never looks good in daylight, and for most of us it doesn't look good at night either.
The skin around your eyes is some of the finest, thinnest skin on your body. If it gets too dry the effect is super aging. If you weigh it down with makeup that is too thick it makes the under eye look heavy, and you look tired. And old.
Choose the weight of your concealer based on how much correction you need in the area, how dark your under eye circles really are.
Light Weight Concealers
YSL Touche Eclat is really lightweight. Essentially it is a combination of moisturizer, color corrector and luminizer. The Touch Eclat pen is ideally suited to throw in your handbag and use as a touch up product as the day wears on.
It is the perfect pick-me-up when you are going out after work, as the moisturizers breathe life back into the skin under your eyes, the color corrector picks up where your morning concealer is wearing off, and the luminizers brighten the under eye area.
Unless you only have very pale under eye circles Touch Eclat is perhaps a little too sheer to be your only concealing product.
Medium Weight Concealers
Makeup Forever Lift Concealer has been around forever. It combines a lifting action with color correction that you can blend so that it doesn't get cakey. Designed for professional makeup artists it has incredible lasting power and a really beautiful finish.
Heavy Weight Concealers
If you have really dark circles that keep showing through the color correctors and concealers that you've been using, you may need to go for a full coverage concealer.
The Amazing Concealer combines intense pigment with a very blendable texture, so that you can get coverage but not have to deal with thick product under the eye. It's super concentrated so a little bit goes a long way.
Kevyn Aucoin Sensual Skin Enhancer is a full cover concealer and foundation and is much heavier, but can be sheered out with a little moisturizer if needed.
