At a master class with Katie Jane Hughes recently, the New York City-based makeup artist revealed her trick for concealing dark circles. It was so unexpected that I had to catch up with her afterward because I needed to know everything. Yes, I felt like a teacher’s pet, but it was necessary.
Instead of reaching for a thick, peachy colour corrector or a brightening concealer, Hughes uses a colour-matching technique I’ve never heard of before. She looks to the area between the nose and apple of the cheek when picking which shade of undereye concealer to use on herself or one of her clients. I don’t even know what to call that part of the face because I rarely consider it an individual region that needs attention. However, it’s the key to making concealer look seamless with the rest of your makeup and not like ghostly pale rims around your eyes. Hughes says she happened upon this trick by accident while on set one day and now she swears by it.
Because this little region isn’t as susceptible to redness as the rest of your face, “it’s the most neutral-toned part of your face,” she tells Allure. This prevents you from picking a concealer shade that is too pink or too light, which can create “a much muddier version of what you already have under your eyes,” she adds.
