5 Makeup Mistakes You Could Be Making

With hundreds of online makeup tutorials offering tips and advice (with mixed results) and trends ever-changing, a professional makeup artist offers their most frequently seen mistakes. Are you guilty of any of these beauty blunders?

1.) Too much foundation.

“So often you’ll see someone doing a makeup tutorial online and they’re so heavy-handed with the foundation,” says professional makeup artist and skin consultant Kimberly Sutton, who’s spent the last 15 years working o everything from runways to magazine photoshoots.

She says that applying too much straight to your brush and then trying to blend it is a big no-no and can often end up looking like cake frosting.

“When you’re far too generous with the foundation and end up covering your entire face, your skin can get a strange looking texture and look artificial and cakey. Or it makes you look considerably older. Skin should always look and feel like skin, close up or not.”

She suggests using a moisturizer and blending in a small amount of your foundation before dabbing it to the outside of your cheek with a clean sponge or your clean fingers to avoid an unnatural mask look.

2.) Mascara and liner on the lower lashes.

Kimberly adds that a quick way to make you look older and another common mistake she sees is using dark eyeliner or excess mascara to your lower lashes.

“It darkens your eyes and also makes them look smaller, closing the eyes off,” she says, adding that too much mascara on the lower lashes can also create a spider-leg clumping effect. She suggests using both sparingly or swap for a light makeup pencil instead.

3.) Using blush to contour.

“Contouring became ‘the thing’ awhile back and you’ll find a million tutorials on YouTube about it,” she says. “The trouble is, I’ve seen too many try and use blush and it’s just not the same.”

Contouring and shading are applied under the cheekbone to add a bit of lift and to define your face. Blush adds color to the apples of your cheeks and gives it a rosy- plumping look, she explains. Blush should stay on your cheekbones only.

4.) Eyebrow overkill.

“Eyebrows are an easy thing to mess up when you start fussing with them,” says Kimberly. “I’ve seen overplucking and tattooing disasters, but the most common mistake I see is a fair-haired person using a brow pencil that’s too dark.

Your brow color should work with your hair color, she says. “If you’ve got blonde hair, go for a taupe brow. When you choose shades too dark, they can look like they’ve been painted on.”

5.) Using foundation for dark eye circles.

Dark circles under the eyes are a common concern and one that many women fail to cover properly because they’re using foundation to do it.

“When your skin tone is darker under the eyes, it’s a blue-purple or green tone, depending on your skin shade. Using your everyday foundation to try and cover these just makes you look more tired.”

Her tip? Invest in a quality concealer that’s peachy for lighter skin tones that are fair or pink and a yellow-orange for skin tones that are more olive in color. The warmer tones will help counterbalance the blueish tone of the dark circles and have you looking brighter- eyed.