My Top 5 Makeup Tips

-My Life Saving Makeup Tips-

As a makeup lover, I’m always trying new products and techniques but there are still little things that bother me, like the way concealer builds up into little lines beneath my eye, or when I accidentally touch my face with the mascara wand after doing a full face of makeup, so I’ve come up with 5 top tips to help up makeup amateurs (or pros)!

-Tip One-

Removing makeup mistakes

Mascara is always the last thing I apply when doing my makeup in the morning, which makes my face more at risk of being ruined by the classic ‘poking myself in the eye and transferring the mascara to my bottom eyelid’, or just being clumsy and touching my face with a wand-full of mascara. I’ve mentioned Garnier’s Micellar water in a previous post and that I don’t really like to use it much, but it is good for getting rid of little mistakes like this one. I put a tiny bit of the micellar water on to a cotton bud and dab the area I want removed until it’s nearly gone (this should not take off your foundation too). Then I get my beauty blender, or whatever I used to blend my foundation, and without adding any extra product I just blend the area I just removed the mascara from, and you’re done! This works an absolute treat for me and is such a life saver!

-Tip Two-

Reducing the appearance of concealer buildup 

This one is an everyday struggle for me, so I use this tip every time I do my makeup. After doing my makeup and wearing it around for a little while I ALWAYS get little creases under my eyes where the concealer has built up, so I had to find some way to fix it. Most people ‘bake’ their face (I’m not convinced I really know what that means) but I find this time consuming and I’m not totally sure what products to use for that, so instead I’ve come up with my own little method. After applying my concealer but before I properly apply the setting powder, I’ll get some of the powder on my finger and lightly dab it under my eye and other areas that are prone to creasing. It’s important to dab it onto the under-eye area rather than wipe it as it’s very delicate part of the face, and it will also keep the rest of the makeup in place. If you don’t use a setting powder then this also works just as well with a skin coloured eyeshadow!

-Tip Three-

Eyelash growth

So I wrote a little bit about this product in my last post but I thought I had to include it in my makeup tips because it is just that good! I used this product every night for at least a few months (I wasn’t really counting) and my lashes grew so much they now touch my eyebrows when they’re curled, but because I’d always start my applying on my right eye my lashes ended up longer on that eye. The product I’m talking about is the Polaar IcyMagic: Eye Contour Energiser, I received a sample size in Septembers edition of Birchbox, but it retails at £22 and I think it’s totally worth it! It’s applied using a metal rolling ball which I think is so soothing and unique, and cold metal is a pretty traditional way of reducing dark circles, have you ever tried or heard of the spoon in the fridge trick? It’s pretty weird and never really worked, but this IcyMagic definitely does, so it has to be in my top 5 makeup tips!

-Tip Four-

Protect your hair!

This is less of a makeup tip and more of a useful personal technique. I see a lot of YouTubers doing this in makeup tutorials and it really bothers me because I know if it were me it would drive me crazy! I’m sure it’s just for aesthetic, but they leave their hair down while doing their makeup. This isn’t really a criticism as much as it is personal preference, but I like to hold my hair back with a thick hair band when applying my makeup, I’m actually just using an ear warmer thing right now. I do this because it helps me to see what I’m doing around the perimeter of my face, this is especially useful when it comes to contouring. Is there a reason YouTubers don’t hold their hair back while filming a maketup torial? Let me know down below if you know something I don’t!

-Tip Five-

Where should you really contour?

This tip may seem obvious to others but I actually only learnt this fairly recently! When it comes to contouring it’s part of my everyday makeup routine and for years I’ve been doing it the same way, the change I made was small but it makes a huge difference to the finished look. I’m currently using the Model Co contouring stick and I apply it to the usual places after putting my foundation on; along the jawline to give the illusion that I only have one chin, one line around the top of my forehead to make my face look even smaller, and a line on both of my cheek bones to give them more definition. I used to think it blended best if I started my contour line just below the ears tragus, but I recently found out that this is way too low and should start near where the top part of the ear meets the skin (I’m not sure what that part is called), so it’s basically right on the cheek bone. Since learning this my contour blends so much more naturally, and once I have blended it I put a line of concealer just beneath that to create more definition. I feel like this tip was pretty obvious to most people, but I hope this is useful to some of you!

So these are my current top 5 tips! I hope you find these useful, the mascara removal tip in particular is such a life saver for me right now, if anyone enjoyed these tips or if you have some top tips of your own then I’d love to hear from you in the comments, and as usual, thanks for reading!

~Small Beauty