Beauty Fix: How to fill in your eyebrows no matter the hair colour, stop your eyeliner from creasing and hide under-eye circles even after an all-nighter
Whether you’re heading to bed early—but forgetting to remove your makeup—or piling the makeup on to cover dark circles caused by all-nighters, your eyes are begging for a better beauty routine! While it’s easy to think that all your eyes need is a sweep of eyeshadow, there’s so much more going on. We’re talking eyebrow grooming, eyeliner creases and under-eye circles. So, if you have a question about your eyes, this week’s Beauty Fix is for you!
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I want to fill in my eyebrows, but don’t want them to look too dark. How do I pick the right shade/product?
If eyes are the windows to your soul, you better frame them well. No one wants to look like they’ve taken a Sharpie to their brows, so I understand your concern in picking the right shade. If you’re blonde or silver, try a shade that is two levels deeper than your hair colour, usually leaning toward an ash blonde result. If you’re brunette, look for a shade that is two levels lighter than your hair, so that the brows don’t overpower or wash out your face. If you’re a redhead, auburn to light ash brown shades can work. When in doubt, taupe it out: taupe is considered universally flattering when it’s the dominant colour in a brow shade, so reach for a colour that contains more taupe if you’re concerned about which colour to use or how much impact your brows will make.
Now that you have your colour, it’s time to talk products! An effortless option is a brow pencil like Maybelline Define-A-Brow ($9, at drugstores), which can be brushed through the brows with a light hand. The amount of colour deposited is a direct result of how much pressure you apply, so short and light strokes are best. Then brush through the brow with a mascara spoolie or stiff brow brush. Run a brow-grooming product like M.A.C Brow Finisher ($18, maccosmetics.ca) through the brow to add a bit of shine back to the brows, resulting in a more blended, natural look.
Is it really that bad that I don’t wash my makeup off every night?
Of course it is! Even if you aren’t an avid makeup wearer on a daily basis, washing your face is a necessary part of taking care of your skin. While makeup can act as a much-needed barrier between our skin and environmental elements during the day, our skin needs to regenerate at night. In order for that to cell regeneration to happen while you sleep, the skin needs to be rid of dirt, makeup, bacteria and dead skin cells from the day. It’s also extremely important to let your skin breathe from makeup, otherwise pores can become blocked and a round of breakouts could be your literal rude awakening in the morning! A cleanser to start reaching for every night: Yves Rocher Hydra Végétal Refreshing Gel Cleanser ($15, yvesrocher.ca), which will effectively remove makeup without leaving skin feeling tight.
Now that school’s started again, the bags under my eyes have started to make me look like a zombie. What’s the easiest way to cover the dark circles?
It’s that time of the year, isn’t it? School’s in session, full of late nights with little sleep and a frightening influx of caffeine. Let’s pause for a second before getting to concealing dark circles. It’s important to understand that it’s better to address the cause of the undereye darkness than to simply cover the darkness up. Dark circles are often caused by dehydration and lack of sleep, so make a conscious effort to try to stay on top of your water consumption and get enough sleep each night! In the meantime, try buffing Tarte Maracuja Creaseless Concealer ($31, sephora.com) with a fluffy eye makeup brush into the dark circles that plague you. This particular product contains maracuja oil, which is an essential fatty acid that works to improve skin’s texture and smoothness.
My liquid eyeliner is always transferring onto the crease of my eye, is there a way to prevent this from happening?
It’s happened to all of us. We perfect the application of our liner, and then within a few hours that perfect liner is suddenly in our eyelid crease. It’s a bit discouraging, but let’s figure this out! There’s a couple factors at play in this scenario. First, we must consider the condition of our lids. Do you have oily skin or specifically oily eyelids? If so, this may be why your liner is transferring. If your eyeliner is applied to oily skin, it won’t be able to adhere to the skin and set properly. Try applying an eye primer, such as Urban Decay Primer Potion ($24, sephora.com), all over your eyelids, well beyond the crease, where excess sebum tends to collect. If your eyeliner is still transferring to your crease, try setting the eyeliner with a powder shadow in a similar shade. If the problem persists, try switching to a different liner formula. One that dries super fast to a chic matte finish: Clinique Brush-on Cream Liner ($16, at Clinique counters).
My body feels perpetually scaly regardless of how much I’m moisturizing. What can I do to soften it?
The thing about the surface layer of skin is that it can occasionally need a bit of a push to kick-start the cell renewal cycle, especially in the winter—because at the end of the day, moisturized scaly skin is still scaly skin. Start the process and remove buildup with an atypical body scrub. Jo Malone Vitamin E Body Treatment Scrub ($95, Holt Renfrew), for instance, contains finer granules of salt for exfoliating away dead skin cells without excessive abrasion and a very healing dose of Vitamin E that will leave you so moisturized that you won’t need to apply anything to your skin after you get out of the shower. Seriously, you won’t recognize your skin after!
, which can be brushed through the brows with a light hand. The amount of colour deposited is a direct result of how much pressure you apply, so short and light strokes are best. Then brush through the brow with a mascara spoolie or stiff brow brush. Run a brow-grooming product like M.A.C Brow Finisher ($18, maccosmetics.ca) through the brow to add a bit of shine back to the brows, resulting in a more blended, natural look.
Is it really that bad that I don’t wash my makeup off every night?
Of course it is! Even if you aren’t an avid makeup wearer on a daily basis, washing your face is a necessary part of taking care of your skin. While makeup can act as a much-needed barrier between our skin and environmental elements during the day, our skin needs to regenerate at night. In order for that to cell regeneration to happen while you sleep, the skin needs to be rid of dirt, makeup, bacteria and dead skin cells from the day. It’s also extremely important to let your skin breathe from makeup, otherwise pores can become blocked and a round of breakouts could be your literal rude awakening in the morning! A cleanser to start reaching for every night: Yves Rocher Hydra Végétal Refreshing Gel Cleanser ($15, yvesrocher.ca), which will effectively remove makeup without leaving skin feeling tight.
Now that school’s started again, the bags under my eyes have started to make me look like a zombie. What’s the easiest way to cover the dark circles?
It’s that time of the year, isn’t it? School’s in session, full of late nights with little sleep and a frightening influx of caffeine. Let’s pause for a second before getting to concealing dark circles. It’s important to understand that it’s better to address the cause of the undereye darkness than to simply cover the darkness up. Dark circles are often caused by dehydration and lack of sleep, so make a conscious effort to try to stay on top of your water consumption and get enough sleep each night! In the meantime, try buffing Tarte Maracuja Creaseless Concealer ($31, sephora.com) with a fluffy eye makeup brush into the dark circles that plague you. This particular product contains maracuja oil, which is an essential fatty acid that works to improve skin’s texture and smoothness.
My liquid eyeliner is always transferring onto the crease of my eye, is there a way to prevent this from happening?
It’s happened to all of us. We perfect the application of our liner, and then within a few hours that perfect liner is suddenly in our eyelid crease. It’s a bit discouraging, but let’s figure this out! There’s a couple factors at play in this scenario. First, we must consider the condition of our lids. Do you have oily skin or specifically oily eyelids? If so, this may be why your liner is transferring. If your eyeliner is applied to oily skin, it won’t be able to adhere to the skin and set properly. Try applying an eye primer, such as Urban Decay Primer Potion ($24, sephora.com), all over your eyelids, well beyond the crease, where excess sebum tends to collect. If your eyeliner is still transferring to your crease, try setting the eyeliner with a powder shadow in a similar shade. If the problem persists, try switching to a different liner formula. One that dries super fast to a chic matte finish: Clinique Brush-on Cream Liner ($16, at Clinique counters).
My body feels perpetually scaly regardless of how much I’m moisturizing. What can I do to soften it?
The thing about the surface layer of skin is that it can occasionally need a bit of a push to kick-start the cell renewal cycle, especially in the winter—because at the end of the day, moisturized scaly skin is still scaly skin. Start the process and remove buildup with an atypical body scrub. Jo Malone Vitamin E Body Treatment Scrub ($95, Holt Renfrew), for instance, contains finer granules of salt for exfoliating away dead skin cells without excessive abrasion and a very healing dose of Vitamin E that will leave you so moisturized that you won’t need to apply anything to your skin after you get out of the shower. Seriously, you won’t recognize your skin after!
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