Must Read “Don’t Do” Make-up & Skin-Care Tips From A Cosmetic Chemist

Make-Up boosts our confidence. Make-up showcases our creativity. Who doesn’t like make-up? While there are many trends of doing make-up, do it wisely for your own safety and bring out the best look in you. This post is a must read from a cosmetic chemist’s view who has also worked as a make-up artist at top make-up counters.

• Do not mix your eye and lip make up! Do you know why there’s not a GREEN lipstick or True BLACK Lipstick from a major cosmetic house? Not only it’s not an everyday look, there are regulatory guidelines on specific pigments you can use on eye area or lip area only due to toxicity and potential allergic reaction. Sure, Halloween is coming up, you want the most trendy black makeup,but don’t risk it for a daily use! You don’t want to mix up the makeup used for a designated area for hygiene or breakout reasons as well. Who wants that greasy lipstick/gloss on the eye area or cheeks that may clog your pores? Your lips have no pores but your skin does! Remember that!
• Do not let makeup artist use a brush to match your foundation! The proper way of checking if a foundation color is good for you is by the three swatch techniques: Swatch a cool, a neutral, a warm foundation near the jaw line and see which shade “disappear” onto the skin. That is your “undertone”. Then you can select the intensity base on your undertone family. A lot of time to save time, the makeup girl may just brush on the foundation and may not check your undertone. The result is often too chalky or not enough coverage. When you use a sponge or a brush, you get very little pigments onto the skin as compared to using hands. Almost all shades can go if they do not have the right shade of foundation to sell you. Thus, it is why you always look better in store than out of the store. Ask the girls to swatch you for a proper color selection.
• Do not cover up your rosy face with a yellow foundation! If you have a reddish face, the chances are you are more in the cool undertone rather than the warm undertone. By using a yellow foundation, it will make you more orangy and look like you are wearing a mask. First and foremost, the makeup artist should confirm your undertone color. If the redness is severe, you can cover up with a green color corrector to counteract the redness prior to the foundation but never use the wrong undertone of foundation!
• Do not match your face with your neck color with a foundation! Let’s face it, the reason we wear makeup is to look at our best as natural as possible. Our face usually look lighter than our neck (thanks to our diligent use of sunscreen!). When there’s a discrepancy in colors, many women asked to match foundation to the neck so they look even. Think about it. We sweat on our face! What if you wiped off the sweat and shown your lighter face in spots, isn’t that scary? What you should do is using a foundation that matches your FACE and use a bronzer to go closer to your neck color. You can always powder up but for foundation, you want the best match on your face. Another point is when you use a bronzer, you can use it as a contour so there is no obvious line between your face and neck. On your cheek area, even if you reveal your true face color, consider it as a natural highlight! If fact, I always like to highlight the reverse triangle area below the eye area for the Hollywood glow!
• Do not use your face cream too close to the eyes! Sometimes you see people having a lot of little white bumps under their eye area, chances are they use their face cream too close to the eye areas. The skin underneath of eye area is about 1/10 of thickness as other area. Do not skimp using an eye cream formulated specifically for the delicate eye area. A good eye cream should be dense (so it will not run into your eyes), full of anti-aging ingredients that promotes collagen and elastin synthesis as well as improves microcirculation. Most importantly, it must not irritate your eyes or you simply will not use it. Again, use products that are designated for specific area as cosmetic chemists put in a lot of thoughts and efforts into formulation. Do not misuse the products and claim “it does not work”.

The above “Don’ Do”s are commonly observed at the make-up counter. How many have you “done” it? Share your comments.

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