Hooray, it’s officially summertime! While we’re all celebrating long days and warm weather, you might also be facing a battle with summertime makeup. In the morning, you leave your house rockin’ it with flawless skin and perfectly applied eyeliner, but by lunchtime you look in the mirror and all you see is shine and smeared mascara.
Just as you change your wardrobe for the summer months, you’ll need to make a few adjustments to your makeup bag as well. In the same way that you wouldn’t wear your wool coat to the beach, you won’t want to wear heavy, super saturated makeup. Here are seven ways to keep your look fresh all day long.
Use a clarifying face wash. The biggest reason your makeup slides off of your face is because your skin is too oily to hold anything on it. Look for a face wash with tea tree oil or salicylic acid to get skin balanced. If these formulas are too strong for your skin, only use them once every couple of days.
Exfoliate and calm. Another way to keep your skin from getting oily is to make sure that your pores aren’t getting built up with sebum. Exfoliation whether through use of a washcloth or a scrub will help slough off dead skin and eliminate oily buildup. Using a clay-based masque will help calm your skin and prepare it for makeup application.
Keep it in place with primer. Have you been skipping out on primer? Although it may seem counterintuitive to use an extra product when we’re talking about lightening your load, primer is important to keeping your makeup in place. Think of it as the sports bra to your makeup routine! Look for an eye makeup primer, as well. According to Oprah.com, hormonal fluctuations can actually cause eyelids to become oily. Eye makeup primer ensures that your eye shadow and eyeliner stay put.
Lighten up. Consider using a powder or powder foundation instead of your liquid formula. Liquid-based foundation has a tendency to slide right off the skin, and can cause even more oil production. Powder foundations often travel more easily than their liquid counterparts, as well, so you won’t have to worry about bringing it with you for touchups.
Soak it up. Blotting paper is essentially heaven sent in the summer months. Stash a pack in your purse, your desk, and your car so that you never have to feel hopeless when you look in the mirror and your T-zone greets you like the morning sun. In a pinch, toilet paper can also work, but blotting paper is more effective.
Go waterproof. Raccoon eyes be gone! Waterproof mascara stays in place and is less susceptible to oil, so you won’t have to continuously wipe beneath your eyes any longer. Try Yves Saint Laurent Everlong Mascara in Waterproof for a formula that won’t crumble, clump, or smear.
Use dry shampoo. Limp locks at the end of the day don’t inspire truly happy happy hours. To revive your hair, turn to a dry shampoo. It doesn’t take much; just spritz at the root and give it a quick rub and—voila!—you’re ready to take on the world. Or at least the martini bar. In a pinch? Use a bit of baking soda instead. Just be sure to use it sparingly, lest you end up looking like George Washington.
Joy Uyeno writes daily at her blog, Frock Files, about simple ways to live a happy and beautiful life. Before succumbing to her true nature as a freelance writer and designer in her late twenties, Joy held fourteen jobs in eighteen years, which she wrote about in a Love for Thirty Project piece. She now lives and works in the woods on the North Shore of Massachusetts, and occasionally from her childhood home in Honolulu, Hawaii.
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