Putting on makeup is one of women’s (and men’s!) greatest joys. There’s nothing better than seeing rows and columns of your favorite makeup brands and products waiting for you to try and that ecstatic feeling for every new product line launch of your famous makeup brand.
Don’t lie, those foundations and lipsticks on your online cart are waiting to be checked out the next payday, aren’t they?
However, it’s not enough to find good and expensive products or buy every new makeup launch in the market.
Whether you’re a makeup enthusiast or a makeup newbie, knowing how to put on makeup properly, especially foundations and BB creams as the base of our makeup routine is important.
How to Apply Foundation
After moisturizing and putting on sunscreen, the first step in your skincare routine is unarguably applying foundation.
Foundation serves as a kind of drawing board for the rest of our makeup routine. Using foundation allows us to even out our skin and skin tone to be ready for the rest of our products.
Our end goal in applying foundation is to make our skin look smooth, precise, even and cover blemishes, fine lines, wrinkles, and pores. It helps us achieve a flawless look and add shine to the skin as now, more than ever, dewy and glass-skin foundations are gaining more and more popularity due to K-beauty.
Choosing the proper foundation for your skin is essential to choosing the right shade that matches your skin.
When buying foundations, we usually try them on our hands and our wrist. However, the skin tone on our arms is generally darker than the face, so they don’t give the best idea of how a foundation shade will look on the face.
Next time, try testing on your neck. The neck is closer to the face and will give you a more relative idea of the appropriateness of the shade on your face.
Have you ever heard of undertones? They are also important when choosing the right kind of foundation shade for you. People with warm face tones should choose shades with yellow undertones. Meanwhile, people with cool face tones should go with foundations with pink undertones.
You can use your makeup brushes, beauty blenders, and makeup sponges to blend foundation over your face. However, they don’t always produce the best results.
Why Does Makeup Appear Dry and Patchy?
A person feels most powerful with the right and perfect makeup, and this is only possible when you’ve laid the proper foundation, literally, on your face. A flawless foundation is a key to any great makeup look.
The patchy, or cakey as we usually call it, foundations result from applying too much foundation and powder combined with oil, sweat, and humidity and misapplying them.
Having a dry and patchy foundation from the get-go, especially in the middle of the day, is everyone’s worst nightmare. No one wants to look like their faces screaming “MAKEUP!” because the foundation has become patchy after a few hours.
There are many reasons why our foundation becomes dry and patchy, and it mostly comes back to skin preparation pre-foundation.
Hydrating correctly and choosing the right makeup base are the key factors, and here we discuss why these factors make you look patchy and what we can do to avoid them.
Hydrate, hydrate, and hydrate!
Dry skin is the ultimate contributor to patchy and cakey skin. Because the face is dry, the face becomes uneven, and the application of foundation, especially liquid ones, makes your dry patches even more visible than they already are.
Do hydration skincare routine religiously. Exfoliate the skin at least twice weekly, and don’t forget your day and night moisturizers and sheet masks.
No Primer? Our skin’s uneven texture and hydration make it challenging to apply makeup correctly. These texture differences are magnified, especially during the application of foundation. It is for these reasons that primers exist. Without a primer, the chances of patchy makeup increase.
Primer creates a barrier between the skin and the foundation, almost a kind of base before a drawing board so that you can draw on the drawing board perfectly.
A primer generally seals and covers large pores. Large pores are always visible no matter how much foundation you put on your face. With the help of primers, the skin is smoothened out, and large pores are filled up so that foundation is applied more evenly over the skin.
At the same time, putting on primers can help make makeup stay on longer because it helps decrease sweating through the pores and natural protection for water, dust, and other particles that may contribute to your makeup wearing off.
Less Is More
When not necessary, try not to apply too much foundation to your face, as this can significantly increase the risk of cakiness and patchiness.
You can apply a thin layer as a first base and then apply more only in areas where you need more coverage. Use a damp sponge or brush to make sure the entire application evens out.
At the same time, the foundation usually breaks around the nose, the mouth, and the forehead, so using fewer products around these areas will lessen the chances of patchiness.
You can also opt to try lightweight foundations. Lightweight foundations are perfect for those looking for just the right amount of coverage and dread the feeling of wearing too much makeup.
- Too much mixing
- Incompatible formulas
- Use the right tools
- Using the right tools for foundation application is a crucial step in making your foundation look less patchy and flaky.
At best, use makeup sponges, beauty blenders, or makeup brushes–whatever your preferred tool is. While many argue that beauty blenders are better than makeup brushes or vice versa, it all boils down to personal preference and experience in controlling these tools.
Whatever you choose, these tools help in evening out foundation over the skin. It is not recommended to use fingers when initially applying foundation, but you can use them to lightly press the foundation on your face to melt the foundation with the wheat of your hands.
Use a Setting Spray or Powder
Setting sprays should be used sparingly as they can cause skin dryness, but using setting sprays for special occasions or when you need to make your makeup last longer can help set your makeup and prolong the makeup.
Aside from spray, you can also try using setting powders. Not only does it make your makeup last longer, but it will also help in preventing your face from looking so oily and shiny throughout the day. However, be careful not to apply too much powder, as too much powder can also magnify patchy and cakey skin.
