Bye, circles!

    I have a little something different for today. Let's take a quick break from product reviews, shall we?

Lately, my base situation slash routine only consists of one thing: concealer. I just love how my skin feels without any base on it and I honestly, all I need right now is concealer, specifically for my undereyes and veins. Don't get me wrong, I do like putting on a good covering base but concealers are just more comfortable. I don't need to worry about my base looking cakey or smudging or transferring and it feels very freeing, you know?

    So, after a few trial and errors, I've found the techniques and products that work best on my undereye/dark spots/veins situation. Not gonna lie, it took a while to find the right combo but I got there eventually haha! I'll probably tweak a few ones here and there in the future but for now, here's my current routine for concealing my undereyes.

Step one: After applying my skincare and primer, I go ahead with an orange color corrector. I find that if I skip this step, my undereyes tend to turn gray as time goes by and I would like to not have gray undereyes, please. I use my fingers to blend the corrector and a little goes a long way. Don't go ham with the orange corrector; only use a tiny bit for your undereyes and dark spots.

Step two: Concealer time! I personally like to conceal my eyes first with the exact shade of my skintone- which was hard considering that the concealers I have don't match my skintone perfectly! Most of the ones I have are lighter or more for brightening and they're not exactly what I'm looking for. So, I find that I can achieve an almost perfect match but combining two shades: Issy and Co's Active Concealer in NM3 (a neutral medium) and Sooper Beaute's Skin Cover Tint in 02 (a medium tan). NM3 is still a tiny bit light on my undereyes while 02 is just too warm toned on its own so I combined them! I made NM3 my main shade and mixed a tiny bit of 02 to make it a bit deeper. 

I'd also like to add that I don't directly put concealer wands/applicators directly on my face. I put my concealers on either the back of my hand or a palette to make mixing easier and for hygienic purposes.

    The tool you use to blend the concealer out will make a whole lot of difference. Since NM3 has a medium coverage, I find that using a brush ups its opacity. I tried using a sponge with it but unfortunately it just sheered the concealer out. Anne Clutz's Small Eyeshadow Blending Brush is the perfect brush for blending out concealers because it's fluffy and its synthetic bristles just blend creams and liquids like a dream.

Step Three: Before setting my undereyes with powder, I tug my skin downwards first to blend out the concealer that settled on my creases. Yes, it's totally normal for anything to settle on your undereye creases so it's important to blend those out first before setting it. I just use my fingers to do this because the heat melts the concealer, making it easier to blend out.

Step Four: Now we get to set! Before, I like to bake my undereyes to set but I don't like how it makes my undereyes look too dry and textured. So now, I prefer to set using a fluffy brush. I use Anne Clutz's Big Eyeshadow Blending Brush to press and buff the powder on my undereyes. A brush just gives me the right amount of powder to set my eyes with and ensures I don't end up with too cakey and/or dry undereyes.

As for my setting powder, I don't mind using a pressed powder or a loose powder. I just want them to be a bit yellow toned for a brightening effect. I, however, avoid translucent powders because most of them just look too white on me and flashback with those powders are not too great. I want to try pink setting powders though! Might have to pick up one soon.

    And that's pretty much my latest undereye concealing routine! As you can see, my dark circles aren't fully concealed- and I like that! I'm not too bothered with it still peeking through because it looks more natural and well, I am using a medium coverage concealer so it makes sense that my circles would still be there a bit. I just like that my undereyes don't look too haggard anymore haha!

 I've been playing with some techniques I saw on IG and TikTok but so far, this is still the routine that works for me. I personally find that blending out my concealer with a fluffy brush is a game changer and I don't think I'll go back to using a sponge again haha! So yeah, that's pretty much all I wanted to share today and hopefully, you got a few ideas or tricks in this post. See you on the next one! (And yes, it's a product review).