Face Palm! When Makeup Goes Rogue!

By BR Kellie

Ever had that makeup moment when you've just gone 'duh'? Or 'oh noooooo...'? Or, well, let out a wicked expletive because it's just all gone a bit wrong and now you'll have to wash your entire face and start from scratch. And by start from scratch we mean proper scratch - as in cleansing, toning, seruming, moisturising, then applying primer and starting your makeup again... yes, by scratch. Rogue makeup moments. They're an evil thing, but in hindsight, sometimes they're also a little amusing.

So what makeup messes see us face palm the hardest? Check these out...

You're going for a bold lip. It may be fuschia pink. Violent purple. Ruby red. You swipe your lower lips and do that mashy thing before going in for a crisp line. It's all good. You've got everything under control. You lips are perfect. So you think. Until you step back and realise one half of your upper lip is uneven. So you even it up. Step back. Now the other half is wrong. You go in again. Still not right. So you attempt a sly little swipe away to even things up. Next thing you know you look like a vampire who's had a fresh feed. And you're so annoyed you actually wish Buffy would stake you to put you out of your lipstick mess misery.

You've done your makeup. Everything is perfect. The base is flawless. Your eyeshadow is blended to within an inch of its life. Your eyeliner is actually doing what is should for once. There's one thing left to do. Swipe on some mascara. Easy peasy. You've done it a thousand times. So you go in, wiggle and sweep, and it's all good. Then you finish off with setting spray. Close your eyes. Mist mist mist. Go about your day for a bit, then look in the mirror and discover you're a black eyed beauty. Tell me I'm not the only one who does this on the regular? When will I learn the trick is to set your face, let it dry down, then add mascara? 

The sister 'duh' moment to this that gets me every time? When you apply mascara and little bits of it transfer onto your upper lid, ruining your eyeshadow. Don't even get me started...

So you've bought a foundation that every woman and her designer or not-so-designer dog is raving about. Bloggers. Vloggers. Randoms you meet in beauty stores. Your neighbour. Your friends. So you've caved and bought it. You apply it and you think 'by george they're right, this is amazing!'. Then you go about the rest of your makeup routine and by the time you finish you realise something is wrong. Very wrong. Your face doesn't match your chest or lower neck. It's dark. And orange. The foundation has turned you into an Oompa Loompa! Oxidation - why you be so annoying?

I don't know if it's because I'm a child of the 80s. Or if it's because I have a slight clown phobia, no thanks to reading IT at a far too young age. But I fear having clown cheeks. Alas, I am a pasty lass and therefore need to use blush. It's a case of easy does it. No, that's not enough. Sweep on a bit more. Yep, that's good. Then once the rest of my makeup is done my cheeks have eaten the blush and I'm pasty again. So I go in with more blush. And BOOM. Clown face. I look like I'm about to hunt down small children in order to keep a town under my control. And of course this time my cheeks don't eat my blusher and I'm faced with starting again. Argh.

Does anyone else self-talk when they apply their eyeliner? Along the lines of 'easy, eeeeeeasy, slowly does it, just a little more, now don't take it tooooo far. Oh *expletive*. This can be fixed. Just add a little more. A little longer out that way. And. *expletive expletive expletive*'. You haven't so much as drawn on eyeliner as created a road map leading to your temple. This is why if I ever win Lotto I'm hiring a make up artist. Problem solved.

It's not only the eyeliner that can go too far overboard. What's meant to be a simple eyeshadow look can quickly become a hot mess when you realise one area is blended too high and you need to match the other up. Or one outer eye corner is too dark and the other needs matching. So you sweep and buff and sweep and buff and next you know you don't have a simple eye look, or even a smokey look. You have a hot mess, and there's only one thing for it. Throw glitter all over your face and go outside pretending you wanted to rock a messy unicorn look.

For something so simple, setting spray can be a minefield. It's not only smudgy mascara that can have you rolling your eyes, it's the basic application. Who's squirted it only to find you've missed your face entirely? Or have you gone the other way and gone 'squirt squirt' only to think 'more'. Squirted again and suddenly you've tsunamied your face with the stuff and you need to blot it off, taking half your makeup away with the blottage?

Now we're the first people to say 'it's just makeup, it can wash off, you can start again' but let's be honest, sometimes the start again approach is a giant pain the rear, which is what makes these rogue makeup moments all the more annoying. So what miserable makeup moments have you experienced? Any of the above? Something completely different? Let's share our sorrows, and maybe next time we'll remember to have a lighter hand, to back away from more is more, or to at least check which was the nozzle is facing before we spray. Chat away my pretties!