Want to know the step that’s missing from your makeup routine? You’ve got it – it’s color correction. Is it a must? Well, no, but it can be pretty important if you’ve got a lot to cover up! The art of color correction has been around for a long time, but a lot of people simply don’t know how to use the colors that they need. I mean, it is pretty scary looking at these crazy colors and wondering how on earth they are supposed to neutralize your face, right? Well, hopefully I can enlighten you a little bit.

*This post is not sponsored. However, it does contain affiliate links where, if clicked (and you make a purchase), I will make a very tiny commission to keep this site up and running. See more details below.*

 

So why do color correcting? Who should do it? You should consider color correction if you have uneven skin tones, hyperpigmentation, acne or spots that you may be wanting to cover up. Sometimes foundation and concealer on their own just don’t cut it. Color correcting provides an extra layer of coverage.

Not sure where to start? First, think about your problem area(s). Is it acne? scarring? age spots? Think about the area and what color it is. It might be red for acne, brown for age spots, etc. Then you will simply use the opposite color on the good old color wheel to cancel that color out. To help you out, I’ve made a handy dandy chart (that’s totally pinnable for your quick reference!) with a few of the most popular colors used in color correction:

Color correctors can be purchased either separately or in palettes that look like eye shadows. If you plan on correcting several different areas, then a palette might be best for you. If you only have one or two problem areas or “colors”, then you might want to purchase individual correctors. Palettes can be pretty pricey OR they can be very reasonable, depending on the brand (just like any other makeup palette). Below are two product links to Amazon to give you an idea. The first is a higher end product, then second can be found in drugstores:
Stila Correct & Perfect All-In-One Color Correcting Palette
NYX Cosmetics Color Correcting Concealer

Both are great, but I will tell you in full honesty that I have had much success with the drug store options for color correcting and it’s not an area that I prefer to spend a lot of money on. On the other hand, if you don’t use it too often, it will last you a long time, so you may feel the higher quality product is well worth it. Both are great products.

For my face, I like to hide two things: acne/redness, and my dark undereye circles. (Read more HERE to learn about my favorite concealer to mask undereye circles!) A shade of green will cancel the redness and acne, and a peachy orange will cancel out my deep brown/purple-toned undereye area. My go-to product for correcting my undereye area is (from Amazon) NYX Cosmetics Dark Circle Concealer.

And for redness and acne, I like to use (from Amazon) NYX Above & Beyond Full Coverage Concealer in green.

I had a pretty gnarly breakout one day. I don’t get them too often. But, it was my own fault. I was a bad, bad girl and I did the unthinkable. I…*gasp*… am embarrassed to say that I was too lazy to take off my makeup. YIKES! Don’t do this, people. Just don’t. It’s like facial suicide. At least, temporarily. But I crawled into bed late on a Friday night after a crazy long and busy week. And I had a fleeting thought to just GET BACK UP and do it, but the bed just sucked me in further, deeper. I was too warm and cozy. And once I saw the inside of my eyelids, there was no going back. Please, don’t be me. I blame it on my 9-month-old who never sleeps.

SO if you’re full of excuses like me, then you probably woke up with a bad breakout and some horrendous undereye circles. So, let’s start with a clean face, albeit broken out:

Yes, I have a towel on my head. But at least I showered.

Now I do have a lot of natural spots (hello, freckles) so I will highlight here the areas that I want to cover up. My freckles themselves do not bother me, so I don’t try hard to cover them all usually.

Nice drawing, huh? But you can see on my “before” face the two acne spots that were super noticeable and needed to be covered. I also like to cover the creases on the sides of my nose because I always have redness there. So I will add green to cancel those areas out. And the undereyes will need my peachy/orange corrector added to cancel out.

After you clean your face, apply your eye cream, moisturizer and primer – whatever you use everyday. I usually use all three, and this is the order that I prefer. Once primed, grab your correctors. I like to use my finger to apply them. The ring finger is the gentlest and will give you a nice light hand on delicate areas. I simply dab my finger onto the area.

Soon it’s all covered with some crazy colors and then you’ll be looking like a clown in no time, like me. Here, you can see where I’ve applied it.

Most of the time I will use a foundation brush to blend it in a bit. Here, I’m using my Real Techniques Expert Face Brush (from Amazon), it’s my fave.

Blend, blend, blend! And then after you blend that in, you can apply your foundation and then your concealer, as you usually would.

Here’s my face after I’ve got my full “base” on including foundation and concealer:

Obviously, the color concealers won’t “remove” any bumps, so you can still see where my acne is. But at least the coloration is gone and it’s so much less noticeable. And, it’s about as easy as it gets, you really can’t mess it up! Here’s a shot after I applied my full made up face:

I took a few more shots in artificial lighting also (all others in this post were in natural light):

I even took my towel off my head for you, wasn’t that nice? haha. And because I like a little before and after progression, let’s see how far we’ve come (my apologies for the inconsistent natural lighting):

So what do you think? Will you be trying out color correction? Do you have any tips and tricks you’d like to share? If so, I’d love to hear them!

 

 

 

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