How To Conceal Eye Bags With Less Make Up

There are many reasons why women develop eye bags. One of the main reasons is heredity.
But you can manage it by sleeping with a raised pillow to reduce fluid retention around your eyes, getting enough sleep, splashing cold water on your face in the morning, reducing salt in your meals and concealing with makeup.

Eye bags make a woman look older, tired and unhappy. While some eye bags are manageable with makeup, others are really obviously puffy with very deep hollows on the tear trough. Such women may decide to get them surgically removed and others may attempt to fill up the hollows with concealer. But successfully concealing eye bags is not about the amount of concealer you use, it is about using the right concealer in terms of color, concentration, consistency and the method of application. 

It is important to remember that to level out any depth on your face you need to use two or more shades lighter than your skin color and to give depth to flat areas on your face simply use two or more shades darker than your skin color. Eye bags are noticeable because of the hollows under the actual bags. Therefore, if you want to conceal eye bags you need to work on applying a lighter color ONLY in the hollow to bring it forward. You don't have to use a concealer to fill it up. The ability to place the lighter shade only in the hollow area and blend it out without applying it on the actual eye bag takes practice and skill.

In learning how to apply makeup don't just  copy the makeup process without finding out why certain applications are made in a certain way on a particular person. In contouring for instance, find out the purpose of contouring and how you will achieve the same purpose to fit your face. Find out what works for your face by skillfully hiding the flaws and bringing out your best facial features.

Things you will need to conceal eye bags

1. Eye Cream
2. Color Correcting Concealer

3. Concealer

4. Angled brush 

5. Setting powder

6. Blending brush to set

7. Buffing Brush

Important tasks: 

1. Find out the right color corrector for your dark circles

If you have dark circles under your eyes you must first correct it by applying a colored concealer on your dark circles so that it will blend with your skin color. For a fair african skin, a yellow corrector works well. For a dark skin you can use an orange corrector and for some other skin colors, you can simply mix a little orange corrector with a beige concealer or you can use a light green corrector. The point is to test each color on your dark circles to ascertain which shade when applied on the dark circle will make it look like your skin color. Simply sit down and play around with different colors to see which shade works for you. You will know that a particular color works for you when you only need a tiny bit of it to correct your under eye circles. The right corrector for you will reduce the amount of concealer you will need in the next step. Once you have arrived at an ideal shade, simply mix a large quantity of it in a container with a tight cover for future use in order to save time.

2.  Find the right concealer 

Don't settle for what your makeup artist recommended, find out yourself. This is so important since a good concealer for your eye bags must have a thick creamy consistency and the color must be concentrated so that you do not need more coats to conceal your eyebags. Remember our aim here is to conceal with less make up. 

Your concealer must be few shades lighter than your facial color. But I must say that if you have pronounced eye bags you must go for more shades lighter. Don't worry, as far as you blend well, you won't look like a raccoon.

Method

1. Wash your face
2. Gently tap a good eye cream underneath your eyes with your ring finger. Always use only your ring finger around your eyes since it has the lightest touch. You also need to be careful around your eye area to avoid sagging and wrinkling of the skin. Wait for one minute for the product to penetrate your skin. Use a tiny bit of coconut oil if you don't have an eye cream.
3. With the tip of an angled brush, gently tap the corrector ONLY on the areas in need of it. Use your ring finger to blend in the corrector. If there is no discoloration to correct please skip this step.
4. Using the tip of another angled brush, place the tiniest concealer on any hollow area under your eyes. You can accurately identify the hollow area by bending your face while the mirror is still in a fixed position and looking up at the mirror without lifting your face. You need to apply the concealer while in this position. If you apply the concealer any other way you will not conceal the eye bags properly. Also use the same brush to spread the product only on the hollow area. If you can still see any darkness, you need to add a little more concealer.**With makeup you will always achieve a more natural look by applying makeup little at a time, blending each step and applying another coat. If you apply so much at once it will not look natural since you will have a difficult task blending it and the makeup spilling off to areas where it is not needed.
5. This step is very important. Let the product sit for sometime. You can use the waiting time to apply foundation to the rest of your face and do your eyebrows. By this time the concealer should be tacky. If not it will be difficult for you to control the movement of the concealer. It will spill into the eye bag which spoils your aim. It is only the faint concealer left on your ring finger after blending that should be used on the actual eye bag and areas below the hollowness.
6. If you are satisfied with the application on Step 5, move on to the next step. If you are not and can still see some dark shadow peeping through the concealer simply use the flat side of the angled brush to apply the faintest concealer only on that spot. The concealer should be so faint that it will almost not need to be blended. But you still need to gently tap on it twice or more with your ring finger. If you do this any other way, you may spoil the earlier application.
7. If at this stage you can still see any slight uneveness, repeat Step 6. Make sure you are satisfied before moving on to the next step because once you set your application you cannot go back unless you wash your face and start afresh.
8. This step is very important. You must set your application with a fine setting powder.  This ensures the application is locked in place throughout the day. You do not need too much powder. A little will do. All you need to do is to place the brush on the powder and dab it gently on the area where you applied the concealer. If you are not gentle the brush will smudge the work you did. Ensure you have enough powder on your brush so that by the time you gently tap it under your eyes the powder on the brush will hit the concealer first and not the brush. **It is important to keep the setting powder and brush handy so that as soon as you have completed the final concealer application on Step 7 you will quickly set it to prevent the concealer from creasing. Remember that the setting powder of your choice MUST be lighter than the concealer shade that you used. If it is darker all it will do is to darken the hollows again which ruins your work.
9. While the powder is still there you can do your eye makeup. When all is done, brush off the excess powder under your eyes and finish up the rest of your makeup.
10. Finally, concealing eye bags quickly and perfectly takes practice.