Ever find that using your under eye concealer on blemishes highlights rather than concealing them; or that holy grail concealer which works magic on blemishes, draws attention to nose redness like Rudolph gone awol?
It’s difficult to find a ‘one product suits all’ in the pursuit of flawless skin, but forget heavy duty full cover foundation and mask-like uniformly even skin; corrective concealer is the way forward. I’ve noticed lots of little multi-tonal palettes popping up recently and they may just be the answer to your flawless-faking prayers. Make-up Atelier is a French brand that has intrigued me for years. Widely used by make-up artists, it’s had a relatively low profile in the UK until recently.
Make-up Atelier’s Correcting Concealer Palette is creamy and blends well: neither too dry to make it unworkable nor too dewy to result in meltdown one hour after application. Highly pigmented, it claims to cover pigmentation and tattoos, not something I’ve tested, but I could well believe it.
So why so many colours - and a weird selection at that? Two memories spring to mind:
1. My A-level Art teacher stressing that our faces are not all one colour, but made up of a multitude of tones - purple, blue, pink, red, blue and grey often appearing in the one face - and that’s before you consider different races.
2. My uni boyfriend admiring the ‘pretty’ blues and lilacs in my eyelids… yep, it completely threw me at the time too.
What I’m getting at is that an even, blanket colour is neither natural nor particularly attractive… genius little palettes like this one can help address shadows, redness and blemishes in an instant, allowing our natural tones to look, well… natural!
Swatches
Above, straight from the palette and below, blended. The only shade I don’t use is 2nd from right - the very deep peach. The lightest peach (1st left) I use for under eye shadows & 3rd peach along for deepest darkest shadows in the corner of my eye socket. These peachy tones on top of blue-grey shadows = normal coloured skin. Magic!
The green, far right, I use to correct redness around my nose or on blemishes. Unlike other green concealers I’ve tried, this one leaves my skin a neutral, normal looking tone and doesn’t require additional concealer on top (to cover the green!). The second vanilla shade along blends brilliantly with my overall skintone and is perfect for general anywhere-flaws.
Blended, I hope you can see just how user friendly these are. A little goes a very long way, especially around the eye area, as these do tend to set and like with most concealers, overdoing it will accentuate any dryness. A good tip is not to use foundation around the eye area and rely on concealer only to cover darkness and pigmentation, adding light where needed with a separate illuminating product if necessary.
This palette is available in two other tones; a yellow based one and another which seems to be for darker skin tones. Images on the Atelier website are quite difficult to make out, but you can find full product info here. The other thing I love about this is how portable and compact it is; the curved shape, how well it fits into my make-bag and how it sits at an angle facing me when propped open… just little things that make a difference.
Make-up Atelier Correcting Concealer Palette, £25
Do you use corrective concealers - and have you ever tried Make-up Atelier?
