How to Make Your Makeup Work With Your Mask

The days before the pandemic were different times indeed. I never thought I would be sat here writing about how to wear make up that accentuates your face mask but during these post apocalyptic times, adapt we must! I’m not about to deliver some tips on achieving zombie looks so chill – it’s more about working with what we have and what we have is a mask covering the usual spots that we accentuate with makeup. Gone are the days of dewy highlights and sun-kissed contours on our cheekbones. Lipsticks, matte or not, literally don’t matter anymore. Gloss? We don’t know her! In such uncertain times, we have to play with what we have and I’ve done the deep dive for y’all. Here are some fun tips to make your mask work with your makeup.

Play With Those Peepers

When we are wearing our masks, we are constantly hiding the lower half of our face. The immediate focus and attention goes to the upper half of your face, namely your eyes. It’s therefore only natural that you want to enhance your eyes and bring positive attention to them. We can do the standard things and apply an extra coat of mascara or give our brows that higher arch but life is short so let’s take it up a notch! If you’ve never been a falsies kinda person, now’s a great time to try it. You can start with the more natural looking ones like these ones from Wink Formula. They’re moderate looking but still posses a bit of dramatic flair that we love.

If you are not into falsies, try adding more glitter and accents into your eye make up routine. It may be daunting playing so much shimmer but once slowly incorporated into your routine, it isn’t that scary and foreign. Stick with the safer white or clear glitter like this one in Diamond from Lime Crime and once you’re ready, bring the glitter on in reds, greens and blues!

Skip the Contour

There is literally no reason to contour your cheekbones anymore. Firstly, your face is already covered by your mask so unless you’re going for streaky and uneven, skip the contour! Secondly, having your face caked in contour powder and baking under that hot, humid temperatures (tropical weather + masks do not bode well) just reads bad skin. You want to avoid your breakouts and maskne issues as far as possible. If you’re not sure what maskne is, check out our article explaining how it comes about and how you can prevent it! If you do feel like your skin is a bit too pale for your liking and lacking dimension, you can play it up with highlighters and blush on the upper half of your face instead.

Related Article: What’s Maskne and How You Can Prevent It

Highlight and Blush

Like previously mentioned, it is definitely not a good idea to be packing the foundation or contour on our face at this point. If you feel like you’re lacking dimension or colour on your face, opt instead to apply some blush on your nose and on the higher apples of your cheeks. This blush from Burberry is well helmed for its pigmented formula and how its ultra-blendable and buildable. You can enhance your cheeks and boost your complexion this way, and draw the focus upwards and onto your eyes. A healthy pink flush will also help add to your glowy look and give you a subtle healthy radiance.

Highlighters are also great make up tools for enhancing the features in the upper part of your face for when you’re wearing a mask. By applying on the right spots on your face, you can achieve a healthy glow. For instance, when highlighting the centre of your forehead, or the high point of your face, you can help to brighten your complexion. Applying highlighter to your brow bone will help lift your features and when applying to the inner corners of your eyes, you can accentuate your peepers and help make them look more awake and brighter.

Colours Are Your Friends

Say bye to your natural nudes and warm tones! Those are for the safe and boring times and 2020 has shown us that there’s no space for safe and boring anymore. Experiment with fun and new colours out of your comfort zone. My suggestion would be to pick a theme and stick with it. Neon makeup lewks to go with your new lime green bike shorts? Yes! Or perhaps a deep pink adjacent look for your lids, cheeks and lashes. There’s literally no limit to what you can do with makeup. A palette like this one from Morphe will be the best to start with because of the sheer variety of colours.

If you’re not feeling too adventurous, start small. Do your usual makeup looks and tight line with a subtle colour liner like blue or green. This way, your makeup look doesn’t scream look at me but rather here, do a double take.

We may be used to not putting on any makeup at all after all those months at home but applying on cute makeup looks may help many of us regain that sense of normality. Trying out new products. getting familiar with your own facial features and trying out what works best for you is a great way to regain and strengthen self confidence! Use hoolah’s buy now and pay later solutions online and in store when you shop at our selected brands so you can get on your make up looks asap!