I feel like a broken record saying this again but if you’re new to color theory in makeup READ THIS INTRO POST first so that you understand the basics that we’re going to discuss in this post.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about your face: It’s nice, I like that sh*t. That being said, from time to time everyone has some sort of blemish or discoloration on their face that they would probably rather hide. Lucky for you, knowing a little color theory can make it a wee bit easier to cover these things up.

Again, we are going to be using complimentary colors, just like in the post about how to bring out eye colors, but this time we are going to layer them OVER the complimentary (or opposite) shade in order to neutralize it.

First let’s talk about redness:

Redness on the face can come in a few different forms, but basically it can be categorized into two general areas: Red discolored skin & pimples. Both of these things are very common, and most people who have them wish to cover them up. Of course there are foundations and concealers to cover things up, but what about when they just don’t get the job done? I know it sounds super weird, but there are green makeup products to help with that. If you’ll recall, green is the opposite of red and when we mix two opposites they make a neutral.

You may have noticed that some brands make green concealers, asked yourself “WTF?” and moved on. Well that’s totally understandable, but those products aren’t as crazy as they sound. They are meant for layering! So for example if you have a very red pimple you can dab on a very small amount of green concealer before you use your regular concealer and it will help to neutralize the color and cover it better.

Personally, I don’t usually use that technique because it really only works if you are doing a very full coverage base, and there is also a HUGE margin of error. I like to treat really red blemishes the way I would treat overall skin redness. . .

If you have areas of red on your skin that is hard to work with, you may want to try a green primer. The nice thing about using a green primer is that it goes on sheer, but the green tint takes the edge off of ANY redness on your skin, whether it be from Acne or Rosacea, broken capillaries (often found around the nostrils) or any naturally occurring discoloration, but at the same time it is built into the primer, so it isn’t adding any extra heaviness or coverage to your foundation. It’s a more subtle effect but it definitely helps to tone down undesired redness.

And now for the other pesky thing that you might want to cover.

Dark Circles Under The Eyes:

Dark circles under the eye area are caused (in most cases) by blood vessels that can be seen through the skin. Often this gives them a slightly blue-ish appearance. The solution then is to use an under eye concealer with a slight peach or salmon tone in it because Orange+blue=neutral. It’s a bit too much to do straight up orange under the eyes, because it’s hard to then cover that with regular skin tone concealer. In fact most orange-based correctors are so subtle that you can use them on their own without layering. Some examples of great correctors are Benefit Erase Paste and Bobbi Brown Peach Correctors. Both of which are beautiful formulas that can be used on their own, or layered under another concealer (depending on how much coverage you need or whether you use your concealer to highlight) to brighten and cover the under eye area.

So that sums up the color theory in makeup stuff for now. If any of you have questions or concerns let me know in the comments and I’ll try to do some sort of FAQ post addressing those! 🙂