It happens to the best of us...I'm talking about the morning after and I don't mean the pill! When you just can't call in to work one more time, how do you fix yourself up so that you don't look like you had about 6 too many tequila shots 7 hours prior? While there is no magic remedy I can prescribe you to alleviate your regret about the drunken events that occurred prior to you waking up with tell-tale puffy, dark bags under your eyes…I can help you disguise the physical evidence!
Here are some simple tricks and the science behind them that can help you look more awake, alert, and alive!
You need to reduce the puffiness around your eyes. You can do this by applying a cold compress. Use ice, cucumbers, cold spoon, whatever. Then, you are going to want to apply an eye cream/gel that contains caffeine, brown algae, or some other de-puffing ingredient. Apply this under your eyes and on your lids. Depending on what you decide to use, you may want to check to see if that particular product is safe for eyelids.
Prep your face! This is a step many makeup wearers do normally anyways but it is especially important to hiding a hangover! Moisturize, and then apply a foundation primer. This will help your foundation to stay put and prevent it from feathering or sinking in to wrinkles. You will also need to apply an eye shadow primer. This works in the same way as a face primer, keeping your eye shadow in place and preventing it from creasing or fading. A good primer makes the world of difference in keeping your makeup looking fresh throughout the day without having to do touch ups!
Now to bring some color into your face, use a cream based blush that is a little brighter than what you would usually wear. We will tone this down in the next step so don’t freak if you look like bozo! Usually, we would take the blush from the apples of your cheeks, up into your temples but for hangover disguising purposes, apply it to your apples only.
Next, you will want to even out your skin tone and chill that blush out, go ahead and apply your foundation as you normally would. If you have an illuminating powder on hand mix a little of that into your foundation to give you a nice dewy glow. If you do not have any, do not try to substitute it with any other type of shimmery powder, just skip that step all together. Apply setting powder as normal. The purpose of doing blush before foundation is to create a more natural look. You will also get that dewy glow from the illuminating powder on top of your blush instead of underneath.
One of the most important steps in disguising a hangover is to get rid of those bags under your eyes! To do this, you can use a light reflective concealer on the dark spots, blending out smoothly. If your bags are too serious to be hidden with just concealer, use any orange lipstick without shimmer and dab very lightly that on your dark bags as a corrector. There are actual correctors made specifically for this purpose but if you are not a makeup artist, you probably won’t have them on hand so orange lipstick will do just fine. The orange will cancel out blue/black spots. You can then apply your concealer on top of the orange corrector and ta-da, those dark circles have disappeared! Buying an actual corrector is a great investment! Go with a salmon color, which will cover a wider range of colors than pink, green, orange, and yellow concealers.
When applying eye makeup, skip anything with shimmer, which will highlight wrinkles and fine lines. Stick with matte shadows, preferably light browns and natural colors, which will cover up redness on your eyes and prevent them from looking sunken in. Darker colors often create the illusion of sunken in eyes, which can be great for a sexy, smokey look. But for our purposes, we want to brighten up the face so skip those dark colors. The final step is your mascara; chose one in a lengthening formula, which will really help to open up your eyes. Skip volumizing or thickening formulas, which can cast tiny little shadows on your face and highlight under eye bags!
Next, you will want to even out your skin tone and chill that blush out, go ahead and apply your foundation as you normally would. If you have an illuminating powder on hand mix a little of that into your foundation to give you a nice dewy glow. If you do not have any, do not try to substitute it with any other type of shimmery powder, just skip that step all together. Apply setting powder as normal. The purpose of doing blush before foundation is to create a more natural look. You will also get that dewy glow from the illuminating powder on top of your blush instead of underneath.
One of the most important steps in disguising a hangover is to get rid of those bags under your eyes! To do this, you can use a light reflective concealer on the dark spots, blending out smoothly. If your bags are too serious to be hidden with just concealer, use any orange lipstick without shimmer and dab very lightly that on your dark bags as a corrector. There are actual correctors made specifically for this purpose but if you are not a makeup artist, you probably won’t have them on hand so orange lipstick will do just fine. The orange will cancel out blue/black spots. You can then apply your concealer on top of the orange corrector and ta-da, those dark circles have disappeared! Buying an actual corrector is a great investment! Go with a salmon color, which will cover a wider range of colors than pink, green, orange, and yellow concealers.
When applying eye makeup, skip anything with shimmer, which will highlight wrinkles and fine lines. Stick with matte shadows, preferably light browns and natural colors, which will cover up redness on your eyes and prevent them from looking sunken in. Darker colors often create the illusion of sunken in eyes, which can be great for a sexy, smokey look. But for our purposes, we want to brighten up the face so skip those dark colors. The final step is your mascara; chose one in a lengthening formula, which will really help to open up your eyes. Skip volumizing or thickening formulas, which can cast tiny little shadows on your face and highlight under eye bags!
There it is; a complete hangover makeover with just a few adjustments to your regular beauty routine! Hopefully, you have learned:
1) Subtle ways to transform using makeup
2) When it is time to put down that Tequila shot
Stay fly ladies. Muuuah
