Ash's Advice: The Art of Colour Correction
Welcome to my little series called Ash's Advice. In this segment, I will give you my personal advice and experience on various topics for your assistance. Before I begin, I just want to say that I'm not a professional makeup artist, I'm not claiming to be, I'm simply giving you my opinion, experience and advice on this topic. Okay, lets go!
Colour correction is unfortunately part of my makeup routine whether it be to cover dark circles, hide redness or to brighten the face. For years I have struggled to cover my dark circles, veins and redness, but since experimenting with various colour correction products, I have FINALLY discovered a method that works wonders for me.
For those who have no idea what I'm talking about or aren't familiar with all aspects of colour correction, let me explain..
Green - Neutralises redness
Yellow - Hides purple or blue tones
Purple - Eliminates yellow undertones
Pink - Masks signs of fatigue
Orange - Hide deep, blue and purple discolouration
Blue - Neutralises orange tones
In this post I will demonstrate how I use colour correcting and it's effect, using and comparing the NYX Cream contour kit and the Garbo & Kelly Millenial Girl Cream Contour kit.
Here is a before shot. (Please be kind) I am not wearing any face makeup here although I am wearing eyeshadow and mascara in these pictures. As you can see, my cheeks are quite red, I have red marks from where my glasses sit, a few red blemishes are present and dark veins and circles under my eyes and inner corner. Time to disguise!
I will be playing with two palettes today, one low end and one high end. The low end is the NYX Light Conceal, Correct and Contour Palette (Left picture) and the high end in the Garbo & Kelly Millenial Girl Cream Contour Palette (Right Picture)
I began by putting the orange tone shades under the eyes ONLY on the dark areas. I then put yellow on my blue veins around my eyes, then used the same green shade out of the Garbo & Kelly Palette over any red parts.
Once you've got everything covered and you look like a painting, it's time to blend it in so it melts into the skin. I much prefer using a damp beauty sponge for this process. It won't blend out to nothing but it will help tone it down.
After this step, a trick that I have learnt and used to help stop the colours from mixing with the foundation, is to lightly set the cream coloured products with a loose translucent powder. Don't go too crazy here otherwise you'll be a cakey mess!
Time for foundation and concealer. Just do this step as normal. I put dots of foundation around my face then blend it in with a sponge. Don't swipe or buff, only tap as you will disturb the product underneath. Then put your concealer under the eyes and blend. This process may take longer than usual but it will help make your base look flawless. Don't forget to set the base with a powder.
Here is how my skin looks after foundation and concealer, flawless!
During this process it was evident to me that the Garbo & Kelly palette definitely out performs the NYX palette. The G&B shades are so so creamy and easy to blend into the skin whereas the NYX shades are dry and tough to blend out. After a day of wear the G&B palette held up, didn't change the texture or finish of foundation or its longevity. One to mention about the Garbo & Kelly palette is that it dries quickly so you need to work fast. This is normal for corrective products to minimise the risk of the foundation mixing in with the colour.
To finish off the look, I decided to play with the contour shades in the Garbo & Kelly palette. For this I used ‘Taylor’ to highlight and ‘Lucille’ to contour. The shades where gorgeous and were a dream to blend out. They didn't make the face look cakey either! Take a look.
The lovely Joanna from Adore Beauty kindly gifted me the Garbo & Kelly product to try out and I honestly do really enjoy it. I love that the shades are named after iconic women too! I’ve been playing around with the palette for a while now to generate a firm opinion before I shared it with you all. It is definitely worth the investment if you are into cream products or looking for a decent quality colour correction palette. As you can see on my photos it really made a difference! Great thing about this palette is that you can get it from adorebeauty.com.au and with the ease of AfterPay on the site, you can buy it and look flawless now and pay for it later!
Here are the swatches of the palette.
As with any new technique practice makes perfect, so find a product you love and experiment with various ways until you discover a way that works for you. I hope this post helped you in your journey of colour correction and gave you some tips on how to approach it. If you have any questions or want to share your own colour correction tips, please leave a comment.
Speak Soon,
Ashlee Louise
Xo
