You know the look….by the end of the day, your skin has produced oil, your base has moved around, powder has mixed with everything underneath, and certain areas can start looking heavy even if your makeup looked really good in the morning.
Thankfully, you don’t need to actually remove everything and start again. You can freshen the makeup you already have on and only fix the areas that need it. As a pro makeup artist these are the five things I do when makeup looks cakey later in the day.
1. Press, press, press!
The first thing I would never do is immediately add more foundation or powder on top of everything that’s already cakey. If your makeup already looks heavy, you need to take away some of what’s sitting on the skin first.
It’s super simple! Fold a soft tissue and blot the entire face….basically anywhere you look cakey. Usually, that’s around the nose, mouth, chin, between the brows and anywhere foundation has started gathering. Don’t drag the tissue across the face because you’ll disturb everything underneath. Just press and lift.
You’ll be so surprised at what you see on the tissue! It’s a build up of everything you don’t need there and your skin will actually immediately look better!
2. Melt it down
Once I’ve pressed away the excess, I like to lightly mist the skin with setting spray. This is super helpful if the cakiness is coming from powder and the makeup has started looking dry or flat.
I’ll spray a very small amount, wait a few seconds, then press over the area again with a beauty blender. It helps the foundation, concealer and powder look like one layer again rather than lots of separate layers sitting on top of each other.
3. Remove and redo
Sometimes an area is too far gone and blending over it just makes it worse. Around the nose is a good example. Foundation can separate, mix with oil and start looking thick very quickly there.
