You're watching TV and ASPCA's Sarah McLachlan commercial comes on. Your boss is being mean. Your boyfriend just broke up with you. Cue the tears, flowing down your face uncontrollably, bringing your mascara along for the ride and ruining your makeup. Yep, you're in full-blown cry mode, complete with bloodshot eyes, runny nose, and chapped nostrils.
Now what? Follow makeup artist Joanna Schlip's step-by-step advice on how to hide the fact that you've just had a meltdown.
1. Use oil-free wipes to clean up your mess.
Were you wearing a full face of makeup when you shed a single, beautiful tear? Grab an oil-free makeup wipe (regular wipes will leave too much oily residue behind) and, using circular motions, buff out the harsh line where your makeup was removed by said tear. Doing this also takes away the salt residue on your skin, which, if left on your face, could mess with a makeup touchup later. If your cry sesh was massive, wipe away all your makeup for a fresh start. Try Neutrogena Oil-Free Cleansing Wipes.
2. Use redness-reducing eyedrops to get the red out.
Before you touch up your makeup, put a drop or two of redness-reducing eye drops in each eye to help calm and constrict the blood vessels. Try Visine Original Redness Relief Eye Drops.
3. Eliminate puffiness with an ice cube and a caffeine-laced eye serum or cream.
If you had an all-out cry, then you're going to want to grab an ice cube, wrap it in a napkin or paper towel, and, from the inner corner of your eye working outward, apply gentle pressure to get the circulation flowing and jump-start the lymphatic drainage. The cold ice cube will help with inflammation and the pressure will address the puffiness. If you're home watching The Notebook and need to de-puff fast, do the above and then pat on an eye cream that contains caffeine and soothing ingredients to help constrict the blood vessels that contribute to dark circles and calm redness. Try Clinique All About Eyes Serum De-Puffing Eye Massage: the stainless steel rollerball tip helps reduce inflammation.
4. Rehydrate your skin.
Before you reapply foundation, apply moisturizer to your skin. Pat on a small amount where it's missing; if you can blend it in with any of the foundation that's already on your skin, you might not even need to put on more of your base. Try Belif the True Cream Moisturizing Bomb.
5. Ace your base.
If your foundation didn't last through your breakdown, use a damp makeup sponge to reapply your new foundation to your face so it blends in seamlessly. "You're trying to avoid your makeup from looking caked on, so this will help," Schlip says. Try the Beauty Blender Makeup Sponge and Physicians Formula Nude Wear Touch of Glow Foundation.
6. Give your lashes some love.
If you weren't wearing waterproof mascara, your top lashes probably made it through the tears unharmed, but your lower lashes at this point have probably seen better days. If they're super-clumpy and stuck together, you can either go with the spidery look (It's on trend these days!), wipe them off and start with a fresh fringe, or de-clump them with a tool like the Sephora Collection Contoured Lash Comb.
7. Bump up your blush.
Your tears not only cut straight down through your foundation, your blush got the brunt of the damage too. If you applied a powder formula, reapply where needed with a blush brush. If you used a cream formula, try to swirl the formula that's left on your face around to see if you can get away with not applying more; be mindful of how much you're applying so you look fresh-faced rather than like Raggedy Ann. Try Maybelline New York Dream Bouncy Blush.
8. Camouflage any redness with concealer.
"It's about being strategic with the placement of your concealer rather than the amount you use," Schlip says. First and foremost, blow your nose, so you don't have to reapply the cover-up around your nose in two seconds. Next, apply a little more concealer than you normally would to the areas around your nose, under your eyes, and most importantly, along your lash line and over your entire eyelids. "Any time you cry, your blood vessels enlarge and rise near the surface of your skin, so they're more visible," Schlip says. "You want to conceal them thoroughly to hide the redness." If you normally finish your face with setting powder, use that after concealer.
9. Pat some shimmer shadow onto the inner "V" corner of your eye to make your eyes pop.
Applying a light, shimmery eye shadow that's close to your skin tone onto the inner corner of your eyes helps brighten them instantly (if the shadow is too bright, it will look harsh; you want it to look subtle). Try Pixi Fairy Dust Eye Shadow, which comes in five shades so you can match your skin color perfectly.
10. Trace your lash lines with navy liner rather than black to make your eyes look brighter.
Navy eyeliner, when put against something white, makes it appear even whiter. So to make the whites of your eyes seem less red, run a navy eyeliner along the inner rim of your lower lash line to brighten them. Try Pür Minerals Double-Ego Eyeliner in "Bora Bora."
11. Reach for a bold lip.
If none of the above products are in your arm's reach, grab the nearest bold lip color you have in your bag, Schlip says. That way, you shift the focus to your lips. Try Nars Pure Matte Lipstick in "Carthage."
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Carly Cardellino was the beauty director at Cosmopolitan. If you follow her Instagram, then you know she'll try just about any beauty trend or treatment once (the pics of her purple hair are on IG to prove it). But her favorite part about being in beauty is finding the most effective products, and then sharing that intel with others—because who wants to spend money on stuff that doesn't work? No one, that's who. Her most recent discovery: De La Cruz Sulfur Ointment, which will change your blemish-clearing game! Hopefully through the beauty stories she writes—and the experiences she shares—you can see exactly why she's in this business.