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

[PinkEvergreen]

@michelleshops Ohhh I can so relate to this. I consider myself an expert makeup mistake fixer today, but I can’t count how many times I showed up to gatherings with a freshly-washed face because I regularly went from pretty good to disaster in seconds 😩 The makeup learning process is a long and winding road lol...

P.S. Sophia 4 Life 😍

[scott1201]

I may have told this story before, but i'm going to tell it again because it still makes me laugh.

In early middle school (i was probably 12 or so) i had one of those big makeup trunk kits that were always sold at the department stores around the holidays. You know, they had a giant eye shadow pallet, a couple blushes, eyeliners, lip liners, and really bad lipsticks? Actually, everything was really bad. Anyway! One day i was doing my "makeup" before school and back then (and now let's be real) i had no idea how to apply makeup or really what the products were supposed to do. I go to school and my teacher asked me if i was feeling okay. I'm like, "uh yea" like a rude pre-teen. Well, she thought i had a really bad allergic reaction to something because i had put red lip liner on as EYELINER. 

[Ispend2much6]

@scott1201  I remember those kits!  I lived for them.  You were just ahead of your time; red is now an "in" color for eyes. 🙂

[Cyncynn]

I have a bunch, but I'll share one from my mom, since to this day it was one of the most hilarious thing I've ever heard.

I always loved makeup and my mother was always nosy and would use my stuff without my consent. I was 18 I think and still living with my parents (as it is common in Brazil, even if you're in college). I had just spent 3 months in the USA and obviously brought back a bunch of new products including a shimmery body powder from the Jessica Simpson dessert line. It was very metallic. Also, my mother doesn't speak english.

I get home one day and my mom had a funny look on her face. She starts "I used one of your products today and it ruined my day." I was like what did you use? She said it was my powder with the powder puff... I told her it was for the body and she said she looked like the tin man and had to wash her face when she was about to leave the house to go to court (she's a lawyer!).

I never laughed so hard!

[PinkEvergreen]

@Cyncynn Hahaha!!! This is awesome 🤣 The mental picture is exquisite!!! Thank you for sharing this 😁

[WinglessOne]

Oh, this is easy for me: each time I’ve ever applied mascara to my bottom lashes. Any and all mascaras, with any kind/size of wand. Even in my full-on goth punk days, I didn’t want quite that much black clumpy sludge under my eyes—which happened EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. And that’s before my sensitive eyes start watering. 

I mean, there’s a reason you’ll never see me wear mascara on my bottom lashes in any photos I share in BIC. 😂 All my lashes are short and I’ll always be terrible at coating the bottom ones. 

[Cyncynn]

@WinglessOne @PinkEvergreen I have the same problem! When I do want to use mascara on my bottom lashes (I'm blonde, so my lashes are too light to show up on their own!) I apply it with a cotton bud. I always remove the excess from the wand so I gently dab the cotton bud on the excess until its absorbed and then use it to tint and give a slight volume to my bottom lashes.

[WinglessOne]

Good idea, @Cyncynn. If my eyes weren’t so watery, I’d give that a try. I’m honestly surprised waterproof eyeliner on the bottom of my eyes survives. 😄

[PinkEvergreen]

@WinglessOne I’m with you on this one! I tend to laugh a lot pretty much every day. I’m just one of those people that finds ordinary life to be quite comical. Because of that, I tend to tear up regularly, which has led me to conclude that I will never be able to have dramatic, black lower lashes. I always end up wearing the mascara on my face by noon, even with waterproof formulas! 

But I’m okay with that. I’d rather laugh more than be cover-ready 😊

[WinglessOne]

@PinkEvergreen Laughter is definitely the better choice. 🙂

My eyes are sensitive and watery, so I cry when I laugh or sneeze. I also cry in the wind, pollen season, anytime I strain my eyes to see something, etc... Mascara’s just asking for trouble on my bottom lashes. I like the way my eyes look without it, anyway. And waterproof eyeliner is kinder to my eyes than mascara. 

[NatureGirlSD]

@PinkEvergreen Thanks for the tag & fun thread! I've had the requisite grade school blue eyeshadow & baby powder as face powder fails, but my first truly horrific fail wasn't until last year when I was 46 & I received a luminizing primer sample that I'd tried over moisturizer on its own and loved, so I bought the full size. When this fairly pricey product arrived, I used it over moisturizer and under a HG foundation with LM loose powder to set it, then went straight to a board meeting in a dark restaurant. THANK GOD. We all do field work, so we're casual, but I like to look human in meetings instead of a hat with a frizzball of hair underneath a ratty ponytail with burrs in it. It's critical to note here that I have combination-oily, fair skin with huge pores, because when I looked in a mirror three hours later I didn't recognize myself! My foundation had slipped around into a greasy, orange-y bronze disco ball, with every pore 'luminously' highlighted & visible to satellites. I tried to blot it, blend it, ANYTHING, but it only moved around and pilled up. I now realize that the foundation had likely oxidized, which was a first and last for me. Hint-always play with your luminizers & regular skincare & makeup routine at home first if you're pale, oily, and/or have ginormous pores to minimize the chance of the nightmare above. My only other great big yet timely fail was a few years before when I bought a then-fancy for me La Roche Posay sunscreen & used it for the first time while proctoring an all-day mantracking training with no facilities. In the morning, I noticed some light yellow sweat, but thought it was pollen from shrubs I'd walked through all morning. Anxiety set in early afternoon when I was sweating bright yellow rivulets. I was wearing a tee with a black cat on a pumpkin for fun, so fortunately at least one of those testing thought I did a colored sunscreen because it was Halloween! I still haven't figured out why only some of us react that way to it, but I'd love an answer if anyone has one. 😄

[PinkEvergreen]

@NatureGirlSD Haha, thanks for sharing these great stories!! They were both fit to be told to Rougies in the dark around a campfire 😂

I’ve never heard of the reaction you describe with the La Roche Posay sunscreen. Thanks for doing this PSA about it! 

[JenniferOhJenny]

@PinkEvergreen Thanks for the tag! I'm an old, so this happened a long time ago, before highlighter was a thing like it is now. Revlon or L'Oreal had an illuminating lotion type product that was supposed to give your face a nice glow. I think there were a few suggestions for applying it, one of which was to put it on your entire face. Which I did, because if a little is good then a lot must be better! Oh my goodness...I certainly glowed. Probably I passed glow and moved on to straight up sparkle. Never made that mistake again! Still love a good highlighter, though 🙂

[Cyncynn]

@JenniferOhJenny 

"because if a little is good then a lot must be better!"

You just defined all my youth makeup mistakes in one phrase. Whenever I used my mom foundation it was like 4 pumps of the thing. To make matters even worse, back in the day in Brazil (probably 2000) brands would only take 3 shades of foundation there (swear to God), so there was no way in hell it was blended, it was a mask!

[PinkEvergreen]

@JenniferOhJenny Lol, I can relate to this 100% 😂 The transition into the highlighting era was not a smooth one for all of us! 

Btw, I like to think that we’re both hip olds because we refer to ourselves as olds lol 😁 It buys credibility with the “youts” when we communicate in the parlance of their time. (Shout out to Cousin Vinny and The Dude Lol...)

[JenniferOhJenny]

@PinkEvergreen Bahahaha, exactly! I have two daughters so I'm pretty hip to all the things that the cool kids say ;). (I excitedly texted them yesterday because I had to tell them that one of the new Fenty lipsticks is called "Thicc")

[PinkEvergreen]

@JenniferOhJenny Haha, I’ll see your Thicc, and I’ll raise you a “so what’s the T?” I actually introduced my teen to that expression!! (Thanks, Rupaul’s Drag Race, for keeping me relevant 😁)

[JenniferOhJenny]

@PinkEvergreen Bravo! You are an inspiration to all of us olds!

[makeitup305]

@PinkEvergreen thanks for the tag! I can empathize with a lot of these stories. My fail wasn't so much the fact that my makeup was off but was that I was wearing makeup at all. After I moved, this neighbor around my age invited me over to her house for a bbq for the 4th of July. I got all dolled up (winged liner and red lipstick) thinking it was going to be a "nice” bbq and when I got there everyone was in bathing suits and cut off shorts, no makeup at all. I felt so lame. 

[skcfan]

@makeitup305 Your story reminds me of the time we visited my uncle for Easter. My dad found a church for us to go to for Easter Sunday (since my uncle is Catholic and we are not), and we all picked out nice colorful dresses and did our makeup bright and spring-y. When we got there, everyone else was wearing black. No one talked to us the whole time either. It was so weird.

[NatureGirlSD]

@makeitup305 OMG, I feel you. I did the opposite when a friend with famous business clients invited me to a "casual" Fourth of July bbq last second & told me to wear my regular- capri jeans, a tee, flip-flops, casual hair, & natural makeup. When we arrived at an estate overlooking the coastline of La Jolla I knew it was going to be interesting. The host was warm & fairly casually dressed, but we were surrounded by at least a hundred of his friends (?!) all dressed in their Easter Sunday finest & matching purses with FULL makeup/hair. I went with it & talked with any normals around, but my friend in his camo shorts was admirably unfazed, even when he kept getting drink requests. It wasn't for a few hours that we got to chat with our host who was fun & genuine, unlike all but a handful there. Gorgeous view, but soooo weird like Stepford. 8-o