Expert Beauty Tips

Follow our easy guide to types of concealer product to make choosing the right one for you child’s play…

Concealer is fabulous stuff, giving us all a little bit more confidence to face the day, but clients often ask how to choose the best concealer. Concealer can come in many different product formulations, so let’s look at some of them now.

Liquid concealer

This type of concealer comes in a few different packaging styles such as a tube, a click pen with a brush at the end, and a wand that dips into a tube. If you suffer with acne or rosacea be wary of packaging that you cannot wipe clean as this can harbour bacteria. We chose a hygienic  airless pump pack that has a a 23kt gold plated applicator tip for our launch product, ReCover Correct & Conceal Red, for this very reason.

Stick concealer

Concealers which come in a wind-up stick format are easy to use and often creamy, as they use waxes to make the formulation firm enough to stay in shape.  This is useful if you have dry skin, however make sure you blend with a brush or your fingertips to make sure the concealer ‘melts’ onto your skin and isn’t noticeable. These stick formats are also good for spot coverage, especially on raised areas of skin, as the waxy formulation ‘holds’ onto a 3D area of the skin more effectively than a liquid.

Highlighting concealer pen

These types of product are often in a liquid format, but the difference here is that they contain tiny reflective particles. This helps light bounce away from areas on the face. However, this will draw attention to blemishes and pigmentation so only use for the under eye area (sparingly- to avoid the white ski-goggles look!), and to highlight areas such as your cupids bow or on flawless skin.  Beware, this can be a disaster on acne scarred or spotty skin as it will draw attention to the area and take away the smooth finish that a matt concealer would create.

Also be very careful with concealers that are applied with an inbuilt brush, as these can harbour bacteria. Never use anybody else’s products, and if you are a working makeup artist always twist a little out onto a clean tile or palette to use, to avoid cross-contamination.

Pallette concealers

These creamy concealers come in a compact with two or more shades. These are great for skin tones that cannot be matched exactly as they require the shades to be blended for an exact match. This isn’t something to be done in a hurry though, so beware of doing this when you are late for work!

That was a whistlestop tour of the main types of concealer on the market today, which we hope is helpful for you.