HOW TO HIDE A PIMPLE PERFECTLY
Meet Carly Wolk. In the video below, she shows us how to hide a pimple perfectly.
A "kiss and a hug" as a technique to hide a pimple perfectly might stretch the concept of being kind to skin, but bear with us. In the quick video below, Carly Wolk, national makeup artist for Estee Lauder (maybe you've seen her on Cityline?), shows us exactly how giving a pesky zit a just little bit of love helps conceal it too.
how to hide a pimple (with a kiss and a hug)
how to hide a pimple perfectly: the recap
Full disclosure: Our lovely model Gillian has pretty flawless skin, so Carly demonstrated her zit-concealing trick on a little beauty mark instead. But she treated the spot like a pimple, which, as most of us know, can sometimes be a challenge if we've accidentally over-dried the area, or broken the skin.
1) After you've already completed your foundation application, lightly dab the tip of your clean concealer brush into your favourite skincare serum, such as Estee Lauder Advanced Night Repair Recovery Complex II ($72 at thebay.com and $62 at nordstrom.com), and touch it lightly to the blemish you're trying to hide. The serum will give the spot a little bit of extra moisture, which helps calm stressed areas of skin as well as soften any dryness.
2) If you're using a wand concealer, such as Estee Lauder Double Wear Stay in Place Flawless Wear Concealer ($28 at thebay.com and $24 at nordstrom.com), you can use the applicator to draw a delicate X over the pimple, followed by a circle around that X, like the X-Men logo -- or our favourite letter symbol for a kiss surrounded by the symbol for hug. With a clean fingertip, gently tap the concealer into the skin.
Here's what makeup artist Carly Wolk used in our How to Hide a Pimple Perfectly video tutorial
3) If necessary, add a bit more concealer in the X formation -- Carly used the same wand concealer with an Estee Lauder Concealer Brush 5 ($28 at thebay.com and $25 at nordstrom.com) -- and repeat the light tapping motion with your fingertip to blend.
4) To set and further camouflage the pimple, Carly used the Estee Lauder Powder Foundation Brush 3 ($48 at thebay.com and $46 at nordstrom.com) to dab a light layer of Estee Lauder Double Wear Stay in Place Powder Makeup ($44 at thebay.com and $40 at nordstrom.com) over the gently blended concealer. "The Double Wear Powder gives a lot of coverage," says Carly.
Ya know, you can snag some one-on-one coaching on how to hide a pimple perfectly. It's a simple as booking a visit with a Lauder makeup artist at your neighbourhood department store. This kiss-and-hug technique is offered as one of Estee Lauder's complimentary 3-Minute Beauty services.
UPDATE: Check out the rest in this series with makeup artist Carly Wolk and our model Gillian:
Two ways to fill in thin brows (without overdoing it)
How to brighten eyes in flash (to fake eight hours of sleep)
How to create lifted cheekbones (without going contour-crazy)
What do you think of this blemish-concealing trick? Do you have a no-fail cover-up technique of your own?
