Your biggest makeup application fail — go!

[PinkEvergreen]

We’re all at different stages of our beauty journeys, but I’m pretty sure we’ve all had a moment when our vision of makeup greatness and the actual outcome didn’t quite line up 😁

My most memorable fail happened when I was about 19. I had applied very dark purple Maybelline matte eyeshadow all over my very pale eyelids. (“Transition shade? Blending? What’s that?” asks my 19-year-old self. This was the 90s, before YouTube even existed.) Bottom line: I was convinced I had totally nailed my look. 

Feeling like a boss as I hustled to my morning psych class, my chill was suddenly disrupted by a security guard who stopped me and asked, “Excuse me, is everything okay, miss? Can I be of assistance?” I gave him a puzzled look and replied, “Uhh, yah? I’m fine...?” He gave me a long, significant look, and leaned in closer. Then he pointed at my eyes and asked, “Ohh, is that makeup?” Again, totally confused, I replied, “Umm, yes?” He replied, “Oh, okay. I thought you had two black eyes. I wanted to make sure you weren’t in any danger.”

As much as I appreciated his attempt to ensure my safety, my heart felt like...

  Credit: Claudio Greco on YouTubeI can laugh about it now but the memory came back to me for years at random moments and caused me to cringe internally soooo hard 😂

Over to you guys! I can only tag 10 people in this post, so feel free to tag others so we can have more giggles together 😊

@makeitup305 @gingerleigh @NotCrocker @ChristineR07 @MissPuff @RGbrown @vivix @blackkitty2014 @NatureGirlSD @JenniferOhJenny

[Ispend2much6]

@PinkEvergreen  That's funny and heartwarming at the same time!  Fortunately my kid told me my eyes look bruised if I wear purple eyeshadow, so now I am careful. 🙂

However, my story is, one day I was at home and experimenting with different shades of eyeshadow and eyeliner.  That means that each eye had various products on them, different ones on each eye.  Totally different looks.

The day progressed, and I decided to go somewhere.  By that time I had forgotten that I had any makeup on.  

I thought I had noticed getting some weird looks from the checkout people, but I chalked it up to being paranoid.

Then, I looked in the mirror when I got home and figured it out. 🙂

[tastelikewater]

@Ispend2much6 That just happened to my friend the other day! We were playing with looks for her wedding, and did two completely different eyes. After I left, she decided to run errands but forgot to wash her face, and didn't figure out until later why people were looking at her so strangely!

[Ispend2much6]

@tastelikewater  Oh, good, I'm not the only one!  Congratulations to your friend. 🙂

[PinkEvergreen]

@Ispend2much6 I bet this has happened to a lot of people BIC since I think most of us regularly swatch and try on makeup 😄 I have swatches on my arm as I type this lol...

[divaknits]

I’ve had swatches of long-wearing liquid lipsticks that I forgot I had on for two or three days. At least I know which ones last the longest. 

[GennX]

@divaknits

Hahaha I was going to say...at least with the swatches you have definite confirmation which products you can count on to last the longest! 😉

[PinkEvergreen]

@GennX The swatches I did on my arm for the Natasha Denona Gold palette recently lasted three days, three showers, one hot bath, and even withstood two attempts to scrub them off lol 😅 

[GennX]

@PinkEvergreen

It's comments like that, which have me wondering exactly what kind of industrial strength makeup remover is going to be required if you want to take it off

I mean, sure it's great to have makeup that stays on your face the whole time that you want it to stay on while looking good, but if you need a diluted mix of chemicals requiring a HAZMAT-OSHA certification just to buy so you have a way to remove it at the end of the night...Maybe it stays on a little *too well*.

😉

[PinkEvergreen]

@GennX Fortunately for me, my oily eyelids make short work of pretty much any eyeshadow. Natasha Denona’s formulas are the only ones I’ve found that will last a full 12 hours on me, when used with setting spray. 

I’m looking forward to the day when the trend will be to wear makeup on our arms — I’ll finally be able to wear ColourPop and Stila lol 😂 

[GennX]

@PinkEvergreen

The way I see it, the makeup on your arms trend is merely waiting for someone, anyone, to start it ! 😉 

[Ispend2much6]

@PinkEvergreen  I forgot about the arm/hand swatches.  I've definitely looked bruised that way!

[PinkEvergreen]

@Ispend2much6 Me too!! I’ve gotten some funny looks 😅

[gonerogue]

Thanks for the fun thread @PinkEvergreen!

Boy, where to start?! I have a similar blackeye story as you but I let my "aspiring makeup artist" best friend practice a smokey eye on me at lunch one day in high school and I walked around looking like an assault victim the entire day because he was just no good lol

I can think of two pretty bad, awkward makeup moves. In highschool I was as pale as a ghost and wore foundation about 3 shades too dark for ~2 years (yikes!). Just this February I went to Puerto Vallarta, MX and wore waterproof mascara on my bottom lashes thinking....it's waterproof, it'll withstand humidity...WRONG. I'm glad halfway through my dinner I went to the bathroom to discover I had raccoon eyes and just wiped it all off. NEVER AGAIN!

[tastelikewater]

@gonerogue You know that statistic from The Bra Whisperer about how many women wear the wrong size bra? I'm positive that it's lower than the number of women who wore the wrong shade of foundation as a teenager! 

[PinkEvergreen]

@tastelikewater Haha, totally!!! 😂

[gonerogue]

@tastelikewater I totally believe that! 😂😂

[PinkEvergreen]

@gonerogue Foundation mis-matching in high school is a rite of passage. I’ve never heard anyone say, “I wish my foundation matched my skin tone as well as it did in high school” 😂

I went in the opposite direction. I was pale and usually chose the lightest shade of CoverGirl foundation. In photos where flash was involved, I looked like a ghost. Oh the cringe of these memories 😆

[Anonymous]

lol omg i lost it when the security thought u had 2 black eyes 😂 That was funny , well im 23 yrs old yeah im young but sometimes i feel old lol when i was 10 i was like in 5th grade i wpuld always sneek in my mothers vanity room she will always have these (ulta make up eyeshadows or mary kay lls ) i call it the old lady make up 😂 but you know they got some cute stuff got to admit i knew i was glittering lol i would put this light brown eye shawdow with dark and glitter idk i jus mixed everything up thinking it would match with me and a pencil eye liner on my top lid let me remind u i "would use my mom stuff " lol evil me till i got whooped by my mom when she found out 😂 anyways thats another story now back when i was 10 years old this was in 2005 im not sure if there was even contour thing but i sure didnt know nothing till now lol smh i wasnt hip like all these kids now but back then i didnt use no primer no nothing !! no foundation i didnt even know there was foundation i wasnt really into makeup till i was 14 or so i was jus into the stuff my mom used but i thought it jus cute i was a tomboy kid into sports and living life didnt care about what others thought but now generation now ppl are so into what ppl think its sad 😷😭😒🤓but my makeup was cu cu crazy lls smh idk why i walked lookin like a wierd rainbow clown 🌈♥ but i was cute in my own way lls wish i could find pics but one day ill post lls now im gettin some help with the new things lls

[ChristineR07]

Thanks for the tag @PinkEvergreen! I’ve been thinking through these all day trying to think of the best one. It’s a whole story that requires a bit of explanation.

I wasn’t allowed to wear makeup until high school. But, I had been a junior competitive figure skater so that rule was obviously not in place for competition. And I had done some theater. So my whole frame of reference for makeup was stage makeup. 

I had pretty bad skin then (a combination of teenage acne and extremely early onset and undiagnosed rosacea) so my dermatologist told my mum and I that I should wear Clinique instead of the Covergirl I had been wearing as they’d have the best option for what I need and my skin. To Macy’s we head. On our way to the Clinique counter we walk past the MAC counter. They are obviously younger and cooler than Clinique. So I convince my mum that we should go there instead.

We leave with a ridiculous amount of products for a 14 or 15 year old. I’m so excited. I get up the next day and start to apply my makeup. Like it was stage makeup. Literally applying MAC foundation like pancake. My eyeshadow was like I needed to be seen from the fourth ring of Lincoln Center. Eyebrows drawn on like a mime.

 Everything. Was. Stage. Makeup.

I got done and looked in the mirror and thought, “This is perfect.” Mum walks past and hints that I may want to tone it down a bit for school. So I took a blending blush and spent like three seconds on each eye and was convinced it was fine. Because kids are mean and I looked ridiculous, I was in tears by the time we made it to school. I went to the nurse’s office, washed it all off, and put on my best friend’s slightly too dark and too orange makeup to get through the day. It was never that bad again, but it did take about a year of playing around and practicing on weekends before I learned how to consistently do my makeup without it first being stage makeup and then toning it down.

[PinkEvergreen]

@ChristineR07 You had me at “My eyeshadow was like I needed to be seen from the fourth ring of Lincoln Center.” 😂 

Can you imagine being a teacher in high school? They must see the craziest stuff as kids fumble through makeup and fashion. @alexasteph, I think you teach, right? 😉

[alexasteph]

@PinkEvergreen @ChristineR07 Haha, well the only makeup thing I see with kids that gives me any pause is the always ready for Insta look... harsh brows, too much highlighter, false lashes, etc. Those girls don’t move their faces... It really is just too too too much makeup for anyone. If you’re doing a photo shoot or will be on camera that’s different since you need it for the camera to pick it up (to a point though....) but I don’t think anyone needs so much makeup their afraid to talk or smile or laugh or have any sort of expression. Regardless of age! But in the schools this is 100% due to social media. When I was younger the only time false lashes came out was for plays, dances, dance competitions. Never for 3rd period biology. Cut crease in 2005? That wasn’t even a thing! That wasn’t even a thing a in 2013!