Beauty Mythbuster: Can You Really Cover Dark Circles With Red Lipstick?
Let us guess, you and your coworkers/besties/mom/Twitter followers were abuzz today with the beauty hack heard ’round the web, Deepica Mutyala’s video for how to mask dark under eye circles using red lipstick. Since posting it a little over a month ago, the video has racked up almost 4 million views. WHAT!?!
We had to get our hands, er, eyes on it to test it out on different skin tones — and to see if the average girl is up to the task of using makeup meant for your pucker to hide major beauty baggage under your eyes. We pulled three of our crew varying from light to dark skin to give this jaw dropping beauty hack a run. Here’s what happened…
The steps themselves are simple, and Deepica is a seriously fab teacher in her video. If you were going to make this technique a part of your daily 9 to 5 routine, here’s how I’d suggest doing it:
1. The first step is to apply the lipstick to any dark spots around the eye with a flat makeup brush. We used a bright, orange-y red shade on all three girls, which is the best way to try and neutralize the dark under eye circles. Deepica also suggests using a coral shade for our more porcelain complexioned ladies out there.
Apply completely around both eyes. Yes, it’s a little scary, but you should look like this.
2. Using a beauty sponge instead of a brush, stipple (aka tap!) on the concealer over the area you just painted red and blend.
3. Set your concealer with a powder.
Circles and shadows gone.
First up, was Anj. As you can see, her skin tone was definitely evened out, appearing to brighter and (dare we say!) flawless around the eye area. In this case, she did find that due to the heavy application of concealer needed to cover the red, the puffiness of her under eye area was actually enhanced. Note it, ladies, if your under eye circles packed bags with them, this technique could solve one problem while amplifying another.
Lipstick Trick on Dark Skin
With Kathryn, our medium skin toned rep, you can see the effects of the red lipstick trick quite nicely. It almost appears as though she has a soft pink eyeshadow on… which isn’t terrible, but imagine this in the AM. Seriously, if you were going to make this a part of your daily beauty routine, it could be super easy to not cover up skin perfectly, leave your house thinking you looked okay and then getting a funny look or two during your commute.
Lipstick Trick on Medium Skin
The fair-skinned, (dark circled ;) Lisa ran into a similar issue as Kathryn. In her after shot, she has, without a doubt, the evenness underneath her eyes, but with all the concealer on it is looking a little cakey and a bit heavy for a daily look. Her upper lids look a little puffy and pink, making her appear sleepy — definitely not the way she’d want to start the day.
