Monday Musings: TIFU – Salvaging Botched Eyeshadow

Salvaging Botched eyeshadow - Wet n Wild Walking on Eggshells TrioWet n Wild Walking on Eggshells trio, discontinued

As a lover of sleep, I am often not awake in time to do the whole nine yards in the morning. I frequently cut corners and keep my daily makeup minimal and simple. There’s not a lot of room for error, which is great – because as someone who used to wear winged liner a lot, ain’t nobody got time for salvaging botched eyeshadow and eyeliner because you twitched or sneezed while applying a wing.

Lately, I’ve made a little more time for myself in the morning because starting the day with an application of warpaint can be fun too.

Last week, I got my complexion evened out and went about my eyes with a two-shade application from Walking on Eggshells. I slapped the lid color on my lid fairly generously. Then, with a Sonia Kashuk no. 116 (cheap! versatile! accessible! also loved by Sam), I picked up the crease shade (a bronze-y tone), tapped off the excess, and slapped it where it belonged with sweeping windshield-wiper motions.

…on the right eye, anyway.

End result? Subtle, pretty crease definition that isn’t obvious; you can’t see where the lid shade ends and the crease begins. You can’t see where the crease shade ends and skin begins.

It wasn’t until I applied the left side that I achieved the, “TIFU,” part of the post. I neglected that critical, “tap off the excess,” step. It wasn’t until I set my brush down and LOOKED at myself that I realized I had made a grave mistake. So much, too much, bronze. When you achieve a cut crease without intending to achieve a cut crease – ow. I looked like a child who had gotten into their mom’s makeup bag. Not a great feeling at 5:50AM, let me tell you.

My reaction? Panic! How the hell do I fix this?! I don’t have time to start over! Maaaan…

Breathe.

Fortunately, problem solving is basically how I earn a living. What’s a little facepaint? Here’s how I went about salvaging my botched eyeshadow.

  • First, tissue. Blot off the hyper excess. Better already, but still a bit like a bronze panda.
  • Second, q-tip, micellar water. Dab, dab, dab away the remaining harsh areas and lines of demarcation.
  • Tap with tissue again.
  • With a clean blending brush, blend out any weird bits.
  • With the proper method, reapply a mixture of the lid and crease shades.

Better. Presentable. As far as I could tell, no one noticed. Success!

The Bottom Line

Correcting my mistake took no more than thirty seconds once I calmed down and assessed the situation. Granted, it helps that the crease shade and the lid shade were not worlds away, but still. Don’t panic – unless you have eyeliner or mascara everywhere, you can probably succeed at salvaging botched eyeshadow.

Beauty Hacks & Tips

This legacy post has been given a facelift. Content has been edited for flow and some updates have been added, but the essence is the same!

After comparing my list to so many top hits from Google from silly magazines, I’m confident that MOST of these are not cookie-cutter tips. So many of these, “beauty hacks,” are old hat to me just because I’ve been doing them so long – but it’s come to my attention that some of them are apparently, “sneaky beauty hacks.” I figured, “Why not share?” We’re all trying to streamline our life and make time for other things – even as someone who enjoys beauty, that doesn’t mean I have an hour or two to throw at it on a daily basis – in fact, writing that made me laugh.

Let’s get on with it!

Before I had highlights!

Hair Hacks

  • Maximize efficacy of your dry shampoo. It will absorb oils as you sleep so you aren’t in such a rush in the morning. As much as I love dry shampoo, sometimes I want it to do what it does faster than it does. Solution? Use your dry shampoo at night before you go to sleep. I like Batiste and Psssst!  [2022 update: Skip conventional dry shampoos; many of them are being found to contain cancer-causing benzene. Use tapioca starch instead!]
  • If you buy large bottles of shampoo and conditioner (such as Tresemme’s 39oz monstrosities [2022 update: Screw Tresemme, they repeatedly sell and resell formulas that lead to hair loss]) and transfer them to smaller bottles, you will be pleased to learn that the caps for Dawn dish soap fit on a lot of bottles that take pumps. Pumps aren’t the best for transferring thick product to other containers, but swapping one of those caps makes life a LOT easier. (2018 Update: These bottle couplers are nice too if you need to combine contents a lot – but I still use Dawn caps for all sorts of things. Reduce, reuse, recycle, save money etc.)

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