The Mystery of the Under-Eye Concealer

Okay, quick one here. I’ve mentioned before that I have protruding eyes (i.e., they stick out of my face), which means I end up with a puffy pocket cupping the bottom of my eye. Most of you will get this puffiness when you smile… like your skin is cupping itself around the bottom of your eyeball. Nice!

For me, because my eye juts out, it’s far more pronounced whether I am smiling or not. This, let me tell you, is friggin’ ridiculous. Let me show you a photo of what I mean:

As you can see, yeah. It’s not a good look. I wouldn’t mind it so much if it only happened when I smiled, but ugh.

Anyway, with my skills and confidence with eye makeup slowly building, I realized that this puffy problem was pissing me off. It sucks when you spend a pile of time on your eye makeup only to fixate on these two giant saggy bags that are clinging onto your eyeballs for dear life.

So, a search for solutions began. Lisa Eldridge, a lovely makeup artist whose website can be found via Google, suggests caffeine-based eye treatments to treat the problem. Which is great and does work, but it doesn’t solve my problem on the spot. Hence began my research into under-eye concealer.

It was, as it turned out, Lisa Eldridge to the rescue yet again, though Marlena from Makeup Geek was helpful as always. Together (and along with other gurus and just people in the know), they share some key points around choosing and applying the right under-eye concealer.

First, you want something that not very creamy. The thicker it is, the more likely it is to cake up and end up making your eyes look like they have tiny stretch marks under them. Not good. Something with a gel consistency (like Eve Pearl’s Salmon Concealers) or something that is thinner (like MAC’s Studio Finish or Clinique’s Airbrush Concealer) is going to be better than a creamy concealer. For the most part… this varies from product to product.

Second, there is a difference between dark circles under your eyes and the puffiness I am talking about here. Different products will work better for each of these problems. I don’t have dark circles (I don’t think), so I looked mainly for stuff around puffy eyes.

Third, for puffy eyes you want something reflective or brightening. That is, the concealer has light-reflecting properties that serve to brighten the area it’s concealing.

Fourth, it is very, very important that you only apply concealer where it’s dark; applying it to the surrounding area as well (as you would face concealer) will not work because it will just make everything the same color which means the shadows will still be there. So, a steady and controlled hand that is good at blending is very necessary.

Fifth, it’s generally a good idea to apply this AFTER you’ve done your eye makeup, because then the concealer not only covers up the dark baggy shadow but it also cleans up any smudges or fallout that isn’t budging.

I currently use MAC’s Studio Finish concealer under my eye, and it works all right but it’s not quite brightening enough. It does reduce the puffy look, but not by as much as I’d like. Product research has pointed to Clinique’s Airbrush Concealer,  YSL’s Touch Eclat Concealer, and the Body Shop’s Lightening Touch as possibilities, but these are all super expensive so they’ll have to wait a while!