It’s never fun to be told you’re making mistakes with your makeup, but surely you’d rather know—it’s like if you were talking to someone and had parsley stuck in your teeth, you’d want them to tell you.
Gathered here are nine of the most common makeup mistakes I see people making, and I’ve made myself in the past, too. Luckily, they’re easy to fix!
1. Using Bronzer as Contour
Contouring is when you use a matte powder the same colour as the natural shadows on your face to enhance the angles of your bone structure. Bronzing is when you use a powder the colour of your skin when it’s tanned, often with a hint of radiance or shimmer, to simulate a sun-kissed, glowing look.
They are not the same thing, and cannot be achieved with the same product. If you put that shimmery tan-coloured powder in the hollows of your cheeks, you’ll just look silly. And with contouring products so trendy now, you can pick up a decent contouring powder at the drugstore.
2. Not Blending Your Foundation on Your Ears and Neck
So many of us have the notion that makeup is for our face, and shouldn’t extend beyond its perimeters. Unfortunately, if you put a foundation with decent coverage on your face and it’s a different colour than your neck, well, people can see that!
Take extra care to blend your foundation around the edges of your face, working it right to your hairline, the front of your ears (and on the ears themselves if the colour contrasts strongly) and down the jawline and neck. Use a brush or sponge to make sure you don’t end up with that dreaded tide-line.
3. Using a Warm-Toned Eyebrow Pencil
If your hair is ginger or auburn, skip over this one—you’re fine. But if your hair isn’t intensely warm-toned (read: redheads) then you’re probably using an eyebrow pencil that doesn’t match your hair colour, and people can tell.
Err on the side of grey or ashy-toned eyebrow pencils, even if you think they look too dull when you swatch them. If you look closely at most people’s eyebrows, they are quite cool in tone, so when you block them in with colour, you don’t want to cause a jarring contrast. A subtle cool-toned blonde or ash brown pencil will define your brows without drawing attention to them.
4. Black Eyeliner on the Waterline
I was a firm believer in this makeup mistake as a teenager, but thankfully I’ve since seen the light. Many women wear black eyeliner all along their bottom lash-line, and it’s a harsh look.
There are two solutions to this mistake. First of all, try lining only the outer half or even just the outer third of your eye on the bottom, and blend the line into a taper where it ends. This defines the eye without looking stark. The second thing you can try is picking a brown or grey eyeliner pencil, rather than a solid black. It’s more subtle, without giving up on eyeliner entirely.
5. Putting Powder All Over Your Face
Putting powder all over your face will certainly stop it from looking shiny, but the reality is that most women don’t produce oil evenly all over their face. If you powder every last centimetre of your skin, you run the risk of looking matte and heavy.
The solution? Only powder where you know you’ll get oily. This is through the centre of the face, on the nose and forehead for most people. Another spot to dust with powder is on either side of your nose, just above your smile lines. You’ll look balanced, but not flat.
6. Shimmery Eyeshadow on Mature Eyelids
As we age, our skin loses its elasticity—it’s a fact of life. One place women first notice this is on the eyelids. The skin drops and becomes thinner, and can have a crepe-like appearance.
Wearing shimmery eyeshadow can draw attention to this unwanted texture, and the shimmer particles cling and gather in fine lines. Avoid this by picking matte eyeshadows for the majority of your makeup looks and save the shimmer for a touch of highlight on the inner corner or brow bone.
7. Buying Foundation by Matching It on Your Hand
It’s very tempting to buy a foundation just because it looks good on the back of your hand. But if you stand in front of a mirror and hold the back of your hand up next to your face, you’ll notice they’re probably not the same colour at all. This is not the best way to find the right foundation for your skin.
Buying foundation that you’ve matched anywhere other than on the part of your skin where you’ll be wearing it is just not going to give you the results you need. Visit a beauty counter or find store staff for help if you need it—just make sure that foundation matches your face before you buy it.
8. Wearing Heavy Eye and Lip Makeup
It’s a special occasion, you’re going out, and you want to look your glamorous best, so you build up a deep smokey eye and apply a vampy red lipstick. What’s wrong with this picture?
A good makeup look is about balance, and balance is best achieved by picking one feature to focus on. If you’ve got a bold lipstick and a complicated eye makeup look, they’re just competing for attention.
To avoid this, keep a nude lipstick you know suits you, so you can pair it with whatever dramatic eye makeup you want to wear next. Bold lipstick always looks good with polished skin and a slick of mascara, anyway.
9. Not Cleaning Your Brushes Often Enough
If you have to ask, “What counts as ‘enough’?” you probably need to wash your makeup brushes more often. They’re a breeding ground for bacteria, and every time you use a dirty brush, you’re introducing that bacteria back onto your face. Yikes!
Running the bristles of your makeup brushes under warm water and swirling them in a gentle shampoo until the water runs clear is all you need to do to keep them clean. Make it a habit—once a week, or more often if you have time. Your skin will thank you.