Hi there! Today we are talking about all that jazz that goes into covering them good ol' bags we have residing under our eyes aka (the bags under my eyes are) prada!
Dark circles are not caused by one particular factor but one may have dark circles due to age, heredity, fatigue, anemia or medical problems. Dark circles can reside in the form of bluish/purple veins and can create shadows that may seem difficult to hide and conceal.
In my instance I have very dark, blue/purple almost brown under eye circles. To conceal them I want to use an orange, yellow or pink/peach (salmon) corrector. Now depending on the colour of your dark circles you want to use a corrector that will cancel the colour out.
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| With flash on Canon 600D |
Okay so this is the end result but we want to go back to the starting point.
Now we want an eye cream. Any eye cream will do but one main purpose of an eye cream is too keep the under eye area hydrated. A personal favourite of mine is the Kiehl's Creamy Eye Treatment, I apply this morning and night and a pea sized amount goes a long way. One thing to keep in mind with this particular eye cream is that it takes very long to dry up and what I like to do is apply it as the last step to my skincare and then do my eyebrows. In that time it won't be as sticky or oily once I do apply my foundation and concealer.
After the eye cream has settled in for about 5-10 minutes we want to conceal the discolouration. This is where your corrector comes in. Below I have a number of colour correctors that are suited to every dark circle, personally I use the Benefit Erase Paste in the shade 2, it is the perfect peachy salmon coloured corrector.
I apply the Benefit Erase Paste directly on the perimeter of the dark circle and blend it out with my finger. The next step is to use a thicker concealer that is a shade or two lighter than your skin tone, a personal favourite is the Benefit Boi-ing concealer and I like to use the shade 1.
I apply this concealer directly where my dark circle starts, on the inner corner.
I apply it on with the Real Techniques Detailer brush and I don't blend it out. So you want to leave it on there without blending it out but making sure there are no streaks. After that is on you want to take your regular concealer and apply it as you would i.e. an inverted triangle. Once that is on you go ahead and blend the concealer out with a beauty blender pressing the product into the skin in tapping motions. You want to make sure you tap the concealer in rather than swipe at it or buff it in.
The last step you wouldn't want to miss is setting the concealer. I like to use a mineral powder because it tends to soak up the excess oils of the concealer and sets it down so it doesn't move or crease. I apply my setting powder with a small tapered brush. Sometimes I will use the 'baking' method and apply my setting powder excessively and leave it on for 5-10 minutes and then brush it off with the same tapered brush.
And there we have the finished result. I hope you guys learnt something new or will be adding one of these steps to your under eye concealing method.
If you have any questions that you feel like I didn't answer please leave me a comment.
* None of these images have been retouched. All these images were taken with the Canon 600D in natural daylight.
