Reader Q&A: Makeup Mistakes

Q from our girl Marley:

I was putting on my makeup.  My eye makeup was perfect…even you [ldiva] would have been proud.  As I applied mascara, for some reason, I twitched.  Aside from my fear of developing facial turrets, I was livid!!  My mascara was still wet so my upper & lower lids were covered with black lash marks.  I had to wipe off my eye makeup & start all over again…and it NEVER looks the same.  Sometimes something better can come out of accidents but that just wasn’t the case last night!  Is there anything I could have done instead of wiping it all off and starting over? 

A from LDIVA:

This happens to the best of us from time to time and it KILLS me.  You’re right, it hardly ever looks the same when you start anew.  And sometimes it looks even better but then doesn’t match to the other, untouched eye. Of course, this always happens when you’re already running late.  Grrrrrrrr.

There is one main product I use religiously to avoid starting fresh, which if you must, I personally feel you should do then for both eyes even if only one gets smudged – especially if the eye look is anything more complicated than simple liner and a single wash of color.  And even still, I might clean the slate on both sides.  So if you follow rules, the rule is if you’re going to fully redo one eye, save yourself the heartache and just redo the two.

But back to the alternative…

MAC PRO CLEANSING TIPS 

Many mistakes would be fixable if there was only a way to precisely remove the exact affected area and no more.  What usually happens is that, without the proper tools, the whole area becomes a hot mess.  Women use their fingers or tissues or traditional, dry cotton swabs and they rub to correct, which only makes matters worse. 

These MAC professional cleansing swabs have oil-based make-up remover in them (so even waterproof or longwear will come off) and they are small enough to get into corners and creases.  The key benefit here is control.  One end has a round shape while the other has a fine point.  I cannot tell you how many times that fine point has come in handy when I’m applying longwear eyeliner or waterproof mascara to a cannot-stop-blinking bride who  needs to make it to the church on time.  The MAC cleansing tips allow me to fix any smudge with precision and ease.  I then fill in the small areas with the color products I had been using and make sure to match both eyes.  This is usually all I need to fix mascara and other mistakes on the eyelid. 

As for under the eye, it’s more about adding than removing.  So instead of stripping the area fully (and giving myself the near impossible task of perfectly matching the rest of the skin), I press with a tissue - or finger if I’m really pressed for time – to pick up as much product as I can.  Since it’s usually wet and hasn’t set in, I can cleanly lift it.  The key is to press and not rub.  For whatever is left (if anything), I super lightly dot the round tip of the swab to pull up, using minimal pressure and releasing minimal remover.  Lastly and most importantly, I pat on the concealer I used for the under-eye in the basic face stage. For the best coverage, I prefer a cream (pot) concealer to a liquid (tube) concealer.  I then tap what is left of the concealer on my finger under the other eye to make sure it’s even.

You can pick up the swabs, which come 30 to a pack, at any MAC PRO location as well as various MAC stores.

I hope this saves you time and eliminates future frustration, Marley!!

xo, me