My face possesses an unrelenting urge to turn a darker shade of beetroot when the weather decides to push itself over the 20°C marker. Constantly. Until sundown. It really is one of my more attractive qualities. This scarlet surge in my complexion means that wearing my trusty orange hued reds can be a bit problematic in the warmer months. Red on red isn’t a great look when you’re trying your best to don the more summer appropriate bronzed goddess/beach babe with a punch of colour kinda thing. But there are a few beauty hacks that I have up my sleeve that par back my rouged upped cheeks and allow my most favourite lipstick colour of all – NARS Velvet Matte Lip Pencil in Red Square, I’ve decided takes that crown – to be a year round lip option. Fellow beetroot gals this one goes out to you…
A no blush zone. Those with non-red complexions will find this a bit of a weird one as a cheek without blush when a bold lip in action is always a bit of a Makeup Artist no no, but if you’re a tad ruddy, blush really isn’t the route to go down – especially in the summer. Bronzer and highlight, yes, but that beautiful pan of perky colour? Steer clear.
Redness reducing primer. The best way to kick redness to the curb is to calm it at base level and that means cracking out a rouge-reducing primer. I’ve never found one that completely eradicates the problem but they do help and mean that you can ease off the foundation a little. Clinique’s Superprimer Face Primer in Colour Corrects Redness is a good’un. Pop it on and let it do its thang. It might not seem like a huge difference to the eye at first, but I find these products to show their strength later on in the day when my cheeks would normally be reaching a beacon-like appearance.
Concealer cheeks. For a red cheeked gal something quite magical happens when you mix concealer with a warm finger. Of course it’s formula dependent but a touch of concealer taken over the redness and blended, and I mean blended, can really work wonders. My personal favourite product for this technique is the Laura Mercier Secret Camouflage (I use SC-3). It requires some warming up but once it’s there a light dab hides a multitude of sins.
Powder it out. Personally I like the look of a bold lip with a dewy base. There is just something about a slight sheen on the cheeks that evens out the dressy-ness of a brave lip choice, but we need all the coverage we can get here guys and if that means dusting on a small amount of a perfecting powder that leans more to the natural side of things then I’ll take it. My tip would be to keep it focused on problematic areas and go in extremely light handed with the application. Something like the CHANEL Les Beiges or Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powder in Diffused Light is what I’m thinking here. You know – a hint of coverage, mixed with a hue of yellow-ish tones to cancel the redness out. Beetroot be gone.
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