So what do I use concealer for? Well I have terrible sleep problems and so I constantly have big blue bags under my eyes that need to be covered up. And while acne isn't something I struggle with I do suffer from the occasional face planet that needs to be covered up. One of the biggest concealer tips I ever learned, a little late I might add just two years ago, was that you do not use the same concealer all over your face. There's a reason they make concealer specifically for under your eyes and specifically for covering blemishes.
- ELF Studio Concealer stick in beige. This $3 concealer is great. Excellent coverage, perfect shade match to me and a non-waxy stick formula. I can use this on my face and before I knew any better use to slather this under my eyes- but I don't recommend that because it'll dry your under eyes out like no ones business. If I was recommending a drugstore concealer for someone just starting out I'd recommend this easily- love it. This was also the first ELF product I ever tried after a theatre friend's recommendation.
- ELF HD Lifting Concealer in light. Another $3 ELF product that is not great. This stuff sucks. It is so sheer. It applies with a doe foot applicator and is just awful. It also smells too face make-up-y which I hate. I have no use for this concealer and have no idea why I've kept it. In the trash it goes.
- Wet n Wild Coverall in 804. A $2 concealer! Ummm this is not good either. The shade match is fine and the texture I'm sure would work for really oily people, but my Sahara desert skin cannot handle this, it's so waxy and you can just feel it sucking all the moisture out of your skin. This is another excellent tattoo cover up and literally the only reason I bought this thing too. I'm going to hold onto it just for that reason, also it's only about a year old so if I do another show I'll pull it out.
- NYX Wonder Pencil in light. I didn't really know where to stick this $4 pencil, I think I might have also included him in my eyeliner madness, but that's because that's how I usually use this guy. NYX advertises it as a "wonder" because it's supposed to do lots of things- conceal, line your lips and be an eye brightener. It doesn't really do any of these things too terribly well. It's too light for it to be a concealer for me, but the formula is too hard. I hate using it in my inner rim of my eyes because it's stabby. I have to warm it up first, and I don't use it to reverse line my lips but if I had the right color I may. I don't think it's anything special but I'll hold onto it and see if I can figure out a use for it.
- Maybelline Instant Age Rewind Dark Circle Eraser in medium. I have a love hate relationship with this product. It's $9 and after 3 tries I finally got my color right, but...I don't know. I've almost used up this tube and while I like it and use it I wont be repurchasing it right away. It's a creamy concealer, non-drying and made specifically for your under eyes, but I don't find it plays well with the rest of my makeup. On days I'm just using concealer it's fine, but if I try to blend it in with different foundations for a seamless appearance it just doesn't work. So I'm just torn. I think it's a good concealer it does conceal but after using a full tube of it I'm not in love with it enough to spend $10 on it again.
- Benefit Fake Up in 02 medium. Oh my $24 concealer I love you. I sometimes forget about you in the back of my drawer and whenever I pull you our I remember how much I love you! This is a stick concealer unlike any other I had tried when I got it- it's a super creamy stick concealer surrounded by vitamin E and moisturizer gel. So it's hydrating! OMG I love it. I use this bad boy under my eyes and they feel so hydrated and are lightly concealed. This is not a full coverage concealer it's very light coverage but feels heavy (in a good way) but can build up to medium coverage. To me it just feels so good under my eyes and is perfect for weekends when I don't feel like wearing a full face of makeup. This was my first high end concealer purchase and after it I realized what my problem had been. Don't buy cheap concealer- they're just not worth it. Because I use this so infrequently I've had it over a year and will probably finish it up before Thanksgiving. I love it. I may not purchase it again right away but I definitely will again before next Summer because it's delightful.
Up next I have potted concealers. Or panned concealers. These come in two types- at least that I've found- waxy and creamy. There are some other variations in there but I think both really have their place and I've found a use for them that I didn't expect. So lets just jump into what I have.
- Benefit Boi-ing in 02 medium. This $12 duo is 1/2 Boing concealer and 1/2 eye bright brightener. Since I already knew I loved my first Benefit concealer I thought this duo was a great way to try others and it is. While I don't have much use for the eye brightener I may just not know how to use it, but the Boing concealer is a very interesting full coverage concealer. This stuff is thick, not hydrating but not waxy. I sometimes would use this on top of my Fake Up for a little more coverage and it works fine for that. I don't reach for this much anymore. I've hit pan on the concealer and will probably use it up but I've found other stuff I like better. This stuff isn't bad I just don't really need it in my stash. I think the Boing concealer texture and consistency would work on oilier skins better than dry.
- Benefit Erase Paste in 02 medium. There's a theme here with Benefit. Their products are good. This $26 pot of salmon colored gold is amazing. I bought this after seeing several videos by EmilyNoel83 using it in tutorials or highlighting it in concealer videos. 2nd important concealer lesson I learned- if you have dark blue/purple circles under your eyes, you should use a salmon or orangey colored concealer to hide them. Something about being on different sides of the color spectrum makes them hide each other. This concealer has a creamy almost gel like texture it's very slippery and smooth. I don't think it's adding hydration to my face but it feels very moisturizing. This stuff is made for the under eyes and since it's in that salmon color does a great job. During the school year when I'm super pale I use this under another concealer, but in the summer when I get a little pigment in my skin I can wear this by itself. I think it does a great job, if you set it it doesn't crease. The only thing that is weird about this concealer for me is every review and the instructions online all say to use a little bit of this and that it'll go a long way...not the case for me I have to put a layer of this on my skin. I use the back of the spatula they give you to get it out of the pot and I cover the back of the spatula once for each eye. So I don't know. But I love it, I only use it under my eyes and I imagine this pot will last 2 years unless it goes bad first. I love it and as of right now I'd repurchase it- we'll see how I feel in another year.
- Pixi Correction Concentrate in brightening peach. This is a semi-drugstore option for Benefit's erase paste. This is $12 at target and YouTube told me it's a dupe for my Erase Paste. I actually bought this first before I tried Erase Paste and loved it. It's creamy it's a salmony-peach color and it doesn't dry out my under eyes. For me after a while I found the color wasn't as pigmented as I'd like and while my dark circles normally pop back out a few hours after concealer I feel like this almost made them look grey half way through the day. I like it though and find it a great option if you don't want to spend $26 on a concealer which I agree hurts. I'm holding onto it because it's another one of those concealers I'll break out on the weekend when I don't want to use my really expensive stuff. I imagine this stuff will last a little less than 2 years because it's slightly smaller than my erase paste.
- theBalm timeBalm Concealer in light/medium. This is an $18 concealer that I got for $10 on Hautelook (referral link). I heard about this from JenLuvsReviews and Tati on YouTube. Jen uses this as her under eye concealer and Tati uses it as an eye base/primer. I'd been wanting to try it so when I saw it come up on Hautlook I decided to try it. Well it's not good for my undereyes and then it creased on my eye lids. This is a fairly dry and very lightly waxy concealer. Sigh. It's a perfect color match which was awesome and it lasts forever but I just found I couldn't use it under my eyes or on them. Then one day- I decided to be adventurous and use it as a redness corrector around my nose- the one area on my face that is dry as hell but not as dry as say my cheeks and eyes. So I took a concealer brush and lightly spread it over the area- instantly my redness vanished! It's a miracle! So that's how I'll use this guy up. I probably wont repurchase him because I know there are better redness correctors out there but it'll do for now.
And lastly we have tubed concealers! So now that I have more experience with tubed concealers I expect them to be full coverage and really hydrating. However that is not always what you find.
- Flirt! Glamouflage Healer/Concealer in who knows. I've had this concealer well past the recommended 36 months. I'm pretty sure I've had this for about 7 years. I'll be getting rid of it. This was a gift from a friend back when I was having acne issues, this concealer was really thick and has salicylic acid in it. I used a lot of it because the tube feels pretty hollow. I don't know if you can get it anymore- a quick Googling shows it on Ebay, but it was good then I wouldn't purchase it now because I don't need that type of coverage.
- Maybelline FaceStudio Master Conceal om 20 light. This $9 is also going in the trash. I do not like this. I got this because it was on sale when I got a Face Studio primer that I love. However this concealer does nothing. It is so wet and watery and would be great if I wasn't to go full on highlight the under eye area but that's not my style. I couldn't get this to work and I didn't like the formula enough to try a different color. It's sad because I hate to waste money on crappy products I can't find some way to use, but life is too short to use bad concealer.
- It Cosmetics Bye Bye Under Eye Anti-Aging Concealer in neutral medium and tan. This is a $24 concealer. And I have two of them. I'm actually surprised it's a little cheaper than my Benefit because I definitely thought it was more expensive. I have however never purchased these concealers at full price. I've bought both of them with $9 of Ulta rewards so $15 is much easier to deal with considering I need two of these. This is a great concealer, a VERY thick, creamy concealer. This stuff will cover up anything and it's moisturizing. I always do but people will less dry skin would not need an eye cream before using this. Also this stuff stays moist throughout the day! If you don't set this stuff well it'll stay tacky all day long. I love this stuff. I bought the neutral medium last fall and fell in love with it, it covers amazingly and really disguises those dark circles and blends in with other foundations beautifully. But a few months ago I noticed it was a little too light, it was starting to highlight more than conceal so I saved up my rewards and bought the next shade up tan. Right now I can use tan by itself and it's great but I imagine if I blend it with neutral in the fall I can probably get a little better shade match. Even though I love these concealers and out of all of mine if you told me I could only keep one I'd pick one of these, I do still find in the afternoon my bags start to peak back out. I don't know if I just have really resistant dark circles or what, but I do sometimes double layer this with my Pixi or my Erase Paste for extra concealing power. But I love that this formula like all of ITs stuff has good for your skin properties. I do feel like it helps tighten my under eye area and keep my fine lines a little less line-y. I hope I don't have to purchase either of these again anytime soon, but I will unless I find something better, but right now this is the best.
I wanted to throw in at the end quickly my concealer brushes. I use an old flat Bare Escentuals brush when I used my Time Balm as redness corrector. Then I go back and forth between my ELF concealer brush and an Eco Tools one. The ELF is fluffier and is good for blending and the Eco Tools is a little more structured and good for placement and tapping in concealer. I am definitely a conceal with your fingers kinda gal and use my ring finger most of all, but sometimes I'll use a brush and when I do these guys are what I use.
So that's my concealer stash! I got rid of three and I'm happy with that. I use all of the ones I have so I think it's fine to have options. If there's something better out there let me know! I would love to be able to conceal my under eye circles better, but based on the research I've done I'm doing what I should be it's just not perfect.
Previous Makeup Maddnesses include Blush, Bronzers & Highlighters, Eye Liners, Lippies and Mascara!
*The HauteLook link is a referral link and the only one in this post. All other links link to Ulta, Drugstore or the brands site. I also link to a couple of my favorite YouTubers if they're who I saw the product with first!
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