Why Your Makeup Sucks and What to Do About It
Photo by Liz Breygel on Unsplash
Everyone has bad makeup days, but what if bad makeup days extend into bad makeup weeks or months?
If the makeup of your dreams feels forever out of reach, your skill level might not be the culprit.
It might be one or more of the following common scenarios.
Why your makeup sucks:
1. You’ve Neglected Skincare
When I began experimenting with makeup in the late aughts, I let skincare fall by the wayside.
Sure, acne, hyperpigmentation, and dullness were my constant companions, but the 2000s were a different time; quality skincare could only be found at department stores or a dermatologist’s office, and I, a teenage beauty lover on a budget, had no choice but to make do with the astringent options at the drugstore. As a result, my skin and makeup suffered.
Since the arrival of affordable skincare brands in the mid-2010s, neglected skin has thankfully become a thing of the past. Accessible active ingredients mean great skin for all, and great skin for all means equally great makeup.
The benefits of effective skincare include:
Improved makeup application. Effective skincare does it all, by smoothing, cleansing, hydrating, and protecting your skin. And properly treated skin equals makeup that applies like butter.
Greater product performance. Properly treated skin also equals makeup that wears like your favorite pair of jeans, without a crack, smear, or meltdown in sight.
Lower makeup usage. As above so below applies to more than just your beliefs; clear, plump, luminous skin grants you the ability to let it do all the talking, without the need for heavy complexion products.
Improved confidence. Haters might call it vanity, but nothing boosts your security and self-esteem like a killer visage.
What to do about it?
Invest in Your Skin
Let neglected skin go the way of other regretful 2000s-era style choices, by getting to know your skin type, reading up on active ingredients, and developing the right skincare routine for your skin and wallet’s needs. And remember, skincare can be adopted at any age; it’s never too late to start!
Why your makeup sucks:
2. You’re Using the Wrong Makeup Products
The beauty industry’s recent growth is a double-edged sword, because on one hand, you’re spoiled for choice, but on the other, choice leads to kissing a lot of cosmetic frogs.
If reactions, increased oil production, or dryness are frequent uninvited guests to your beauty routine, you might be using products that are incompatible with your skin type.
What to do about it?
Know Your Skin Type and its Needs
Switching products is also a double-edged sword, because while it’s easy to find diverse formulas and similar shades, replacing a collection of incompatible cosmetic products is a pricey endeavor. Hence why I advocate for understanding your skin type and its needs before making a purchase.
Preemptive understanding of compatible products, however, isn’t always possible and sometimes decluttering is necessary. A detailed makeup decluttering guidebook is on the content calendar for Spring 2021.
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Why your makeup sucks:
3. You Don’t Know Your Color Season
Photo by Christina Rumpf on Unsplash
While makeup and color theory are two sides of the same coin, understanding the color wheel is only half of the successful styling equation.
Color seasons, or the practice of determining which colors flatter you the most based on your eye, hair, and skin coloring, is the other half, an aspect that applies just as much to makeup as it does to clothing.
Like the right lip color, a mismatched color season makes or breaks your look, by washing out or weighing down your appearance.
What to do about it?
Study Color Seasons
Peel back the pages of your favorite glossy and you’ll quickly learn that makeup and fashion styling is a science, one you can also master with a bit of research, study, and experimentation.
Color seasons, however, also deserve several separate posts – a deep-dive into color theory and season analysis is on the content calendar, most likely for early Summer 2021.
Why your makeup sucks:
4. You’re Using Poor Lighting
We’ve all been there – after admiring your seamless finished makeup in the bathroom mirror, you step out the door and catch a glimpse of yourself in a window’s reflection. Quelle horreur, what was Vogue-cover story at home is clown school in public.
The culprit? Insufficient lighting.
What to do about it?
Apply Your Makeup in Natural Lighting
Instead of deceiving bathroom lighting, try applying your makeup in direct sunlight or in front of an LED vanity light.
Why LEDs? Because LEDs mimic natural sunlight and come in a variety of flattering color temperatures.
Why your makeup sucks:
5. You’ve Fallen into the Social Media Comparison Trap
Social media isn’t reality and the comparison trap is a liar. Photo by Prateek Katyal on Unsplash
Comparison is the thief of joy, and social media, with its infinite rolodex of face-tuned influencers, models, and celebrities, lays the perfect trap for those with a vulnerable self-image.
As someone who survived an eating disorder and the body dysmorphia that came with it, I’ve learned to approach Instagram’s potentially triggering environment with extreme caution, and I emphasize with all who deal with similar struggles.
What to do about it?
Unfollow and Log Off
The comparison trap lies to you. It tricks you into nitpicking your life and appearance, tiny flaws all humans have, tiny flaws most people don’t even notice.
I could hem and haw all day about the psychological mechanics behind the comparison trap, but when it comes to your emotional wellbeing and social media, sometimes the best thing to do is draw a hard boundary, by unfollowing accounts that make you feel uncomfortable or logging off.
Remember, elite influencers use expensive photo editing software and teams of equally expensive fitness, nutrition, dermatology, and plastic surgery professionals. Invoking envy and insecurity is their modus operandi, because envy and insecurity drives engagement and makes that sweet, sweet dinero.
Remember, you are awesome just the way you are; beauty should bring you joy, not bring you down.
