Beauty BuzzHow to Get Rid of (and Cover Up!) Bags Under Your Eyes
Life & Style’s How To: Beauty Buzz will cover the latest in makeup trends while answering all of your beauty related questions — step by step! Stop by each week for the latest update!
Under eye bags? Never cute. Some of us are born with them — hey, thanks genetics! — and some of us are betrayed by our lack of sleep. But no matter the reason you deal with dark, under eye circles, we can all agree that they are pesky, annoying, and we’d prefer to cover them up if possible. And it’s not just us “real people” — some celebrities are plagued with the same frustrating issue.
Ariana Grande has been vocal about her dark circles in the past. While filming a makeup tutorial for her YouTube channel, the singer reached for her concealer and said, “Gotta cover them Sicilian, Italian bags I was blessed with and pack it in there.” Ugh — we know the feeling all too well!
“I usually just don’t put makeup on my eyelids,” Ari continued. “I’ll just use like, the darkness of my tired eyes as my eyeshadow.” Girl, same.
If you struggle with under eye circles and are no stranger to searching Google for a remedy, you’ve come to the right place. With the latest edition of Life & Style’s How To: Beauty Buzz, we’ll not only show you step-by-step how to mask these pesky bags using makeup but we’ll also give you some extra tips on how to take special care of your sensitive under eye area, straight from the pros themselves.
What You Need
Eye cream
Skin primer
Color corrector (shade: yellow, pink, or orange)
Beauty blender
Concealer
Foundation
Translucent powder
Setting spray
Before shot with just the brows done.
Step 1: Start with eye cream
The skin around your eyes is one of your most sensitive areas, hence it also being the place to show signs of aging and fatigue first. Eye creams are full of dark circle-blasting ingredients like retinol, vitamin C, and peptides to increase collagen production and brighten up your under eye area.
Use a dime-size amount of eye cream and apply it your under eyes the same way you would dab on concealer. Pat the cream in using your ring finger because it is the least-used fingertip (therefore the softest) and will be most gentle on such a vulnerable area. Here, I used Nourish Organic’s eye cream because it’s fortified with natural ingredients like avocado oil, moroccan argan oil, and shea butter.
Step 2: Prep the face with primer
Apply your favorite primer to all areas of the face. Depending on preference, you can use either a brush or your hands — I personally use my hands to wipe it everywhere and ensure I don’t miss any spots. Primer is a key step in nearly every makeup tutorial as it helps prime the skin (AKA prepare it) for the stuff that’s about to come afterward: concealer, foundation, powder.
Step 3: Apply color corrector in inverted triangles
Before you add on the color corrector, let’s give a brief lesson about the art of doing so. Remember the color wheel from your elementary school years? The same rules of makeup apply. Colors that rest diagonal from each other on the color wheel will cancel each other out.
Green is across from pink, which means that green concealer will color correct the pinkness or redness that comes with acne and zits. Blue works wonders concealing hyper pigmentation and purple neutralizes dull yellow tones.
Which brings us to purple — the color associated with dark rings under the eyes. There is no universal color corrector for dark under eye circles! It all depends on your skin tone. If you are a dark skin tone, orange will be your color. For those with fair skin tones, pink will work in your favor to combat circles. And for people, like me, with medium skin tones, yellow works best. (Yellow is also key in disguising deep bruises, veins, and other abrasions.)
For this tutorial, I used Color Correcting Concealer from NYX, which is available at Target. I used a concealer brush to pat on the yellow color corrector, brushing it on in downward strokes to create an inverted V. (Much like one would apply regular concealer.) Then, take your beauty blender and blend it out! Immediately after blending, you should see a massive difference in the brightness of your skin.
Step 4: Apply concealer over color corrector
Since we’re dealing with dark under eye circles here, we’re going to layer on concealer over our color corrector. I used Urban Decay’s Naked Skin Weightless Complete Coverage Concealer, applying it the same way I did the color corrector.
Draw on the concealer in an inverted triangle, then use your beauty blender to carefully blend it out. When you’re blending a lighter color than your skin tone, you want to keep things level with your eye. Make sure not to start blending the concealer up past the angle of your eye. If you pat it onto your forehead, you’ll lose the allusion of contouring. (Contouring 101, ya’ll.)
Step 5: Pad out with foundation
Next, apply your foundation with either your hands or preferably, a foundation brush. I took my NYX Total Control Drop Foundation — also available at Target — and applied one drop each under my eyes and another drop of foundation on my forehead. Blend it in nicely with a foundation brush.
Pat some translucent powder particularly over your under eye area in order to set everything, all the layers of concealer and foundation. Setting with powder is invaluable, especially if your skin tends to err on the oily side. Powder prevents makeup from sliding off, smudging, or moving so if you’re looking for long-time wear, this is a step you certainly don’t want to skip.
Step 6: Spritz setting spray
Though not pictured, finish setting everything by spritzing setting spray all over the face. Pay particular attention to the sides of the face. Setting spray will help keep everything in place and prevent any of your makeup from sliding or sweating off.
Below is a picture of the finish, color-corrected look. Once you’re finished with all the steps to concealing those under eye circles, then you can continue your normal makeup routine. To finish off my look, I added contour with a cream stick, powder bronzer, blush, eyeshadow, mascara, and lip gloss. Keep scrolling down for before-and-after pics!
Extra tips
Take a cue from some of your favorite celebrities who also battle dark circles. Whitney Port puts spoons in the freezer, then lays them over her tired or irritated eyes. Gabrielle Union takes advantage of the antioxidants and caffeine in tea bags and chills them before applying to her under eye area. If you’re looking to drop some cash on a product specifically designed to combat circles, Selena Gomez’s go-to is First Aid Beauty’s Eye Duty Triple Remedy cream.
Before and after.
