Concealers - the secret weapon to flawless skin

First you applied the appropriate primer and now you’ve popped on your foundation.  Now the last step in creating your beautiful, flawless complexion is the application of concealer – an essential in your beauty make-up bag.

There are different types of concealers on the market from light reflective pens to opaques.  Whatever you use, make sure you get the right shade and that you blend, blend and blend the edges so it looks like you aren’t wearing make-up and you have flawless, natural skin.  Either use brushes or your fingers to apply and blend in and build up slowly.  Just make sure you’ve smoothed the edges so they are seamless into your surrounding skin.  I use either my fingers or my Makeup Revolution Pro F102 Concealer Brush (€1.99) or a smaller eyeshadow brush - it depends on how big the area I am concealing.  Gosh, I've just read this paragraph back and I've gone a tad heavy on the 'blending' but its important!

A lot of make-up artists prefer to use eyeshadow brushes instead of concealer brushes as some find them too large.  For pin-pointing concealing (for anything small but stands out), use a very tiny brush, like an eyeliner brush for blemishes, scars and spots.

Opaque concealers can come in the form of a stick or a pan.  These are good to cover blemishes, pigmentation and redness.  Also stick foundations are great used as concealer due to their high pigments. 

Palettes that come with different shades are a fab thing to have in your kit, especially if your skin tone changes from season to season and you can mix the shades too.

Light reflective pens (like the infamous YSL one), have a thinner consistency than sticks/creams and are used for shadowy areas: around the nose, dark circles, inner and outer corners of the eyes – any part of the face you want to lighten so apply to where you are dark.  A little tip that will give the face an instant brightening lift is to draw on some cat's whiskers.  Take your reflective pen and draw three horizontal lines from the nostrils, fanning out across the cheeks like cat’s whiskers and then blend away the edges.    

Also, concealer is great for creating a crisp edge when applying a deep pigmented lip colour.

I have an army of five concealers in my personal kit depending on how my skin is on the day.  Luckily, I don’t suffer too much with blemishes or spots but I do have pigmentation, redness and dark circles so I need to address these issues (and my concealers came in very handy when I had those pesky insect bites on my forehead the other week).

First up, I am very freckly, very pigmented and annoyingly I have one small freckle that seems darker than all the rest on the tip of my nose (it’s the only thing I see in the mirror and it drives me crazy) so that is the first thing to go.  Also I have an area on my right side near my nose that I cover up with my Catrice Coverstick (€3.50 in Nude 010).  I apply from the stick and then blend the edges with my fingers.

I have some redness in between my eyebrows so that is next to go.  I will use either the Coverstick as above or Catrice Allround Concealer (€3.50).  This palette has 5 creams (green for redness, coral for dark circles and beige for imperfections and there are three shades of beige in light, medium and dark).  Depending on how I feel I will either use the green or the medium shade for this redness.  I apply with my concealer brush and then blend with fingers.

For my dark (blue) circles, I’ve just bought KIKO’s Dark Circle Concealer (€8.90 in Peach).  Now because I’m freckly, if I get the wrong shade then some of my freckles look grey and dirty.  I asked the brilliant MUA Leonard Daly for some advice on this and he said to go for a peachy tone instead of my usual yellow.  This fab liquid concealer in peach helps counteract the brown of my freckles and removes my blue circles.  It comes pump-dispensed and a lot does come out on the first pump so I try and pump half a pump and apply it with my concealer brush and then pat it in with my fingers to blend.  I also use my foundation brush in order to buff the edges if I've put too much on.

Another KIKO favourite of mine is the Soft Focus Concealer (€7.50 in shade 02) which illuminates the face and helps to minimize dark circles and fine lines.  It’s a concealer pen which contains silicones (fills in fine lines), white tea, antioxidants and decongestant properties.   The concealer is dispensed by clicking the top of the pen and the product comes out onto the brush.  Then I blend and pat it in with my fingers.

Lastly, I also love Ken Boylan’s Play Liquid Concealer (€20 in C25) which illuminates and hides blemishes and redness.  I tend to use this with his HD Foundation (€30 in C25) for special occasions.

There is one more little beauty that I think is an amazing product – it has dual purpose but I shall be popping it in my Product of the Week next week so check that out on Wednesday.

Enjoy the weekend!