Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably stumbled upon the term ‘color correcting’ in the past couple months. I am not talking about teeth bleaching or redyeing fading hair highlights, but color correcting concealers. They come in little jars or tubes and can make a huge difference in having a balanced looking complexion.

You are probably asking yourself, do I have the patience for yet another step in my beauty routine, given how much time it already takes? So, what if I were to tell you that you could say goodbye to dullness, dark circles and redness, simply by dipping your toe into the unknown waters of color correcting? If this sounds like an opportunity you don’t want to miss, keep on reading.

What exactly is it?

Color correcting is a super easy way to balance out your color imperfections. I believe that make up is truly an art form when it comes to getting rid of certain shades of blue, red and purple found on your face. You may find it helpful to use these common undertones as a guide. My art teacher used to have a color wheel up on her wall right next to her desk. She used this wheel to teach us that the colors directly across from one another canceled each other out. I learned that green will cancel out red, purple will cancel out yellow and orange will cancel out blue. In the past few years, you might have come across a green concealer targeting redness or inflammations. Unfortunately, they used to barely be blendable and could only be applied under your foundation, so that the green wouldn’t bleed through. Well, those days are finally over. Color correcting concealers today are creamy, blendable and melt right into the skin, leaving it even-toned and beautiful.

Which Color will work for me?

Going back to the color wheel, you will immediately see which shade will help you out with your skin hue woes. I compiled a little list so you can go by your skin concern:

– Acne Scars, Zits, Redness, Rosacea, Sunburn: Green concealers will cancel out any redness on your face and fade any redness you are currently battling
– Yellow Undertones: If you don’t enjoy your quite yellowish toned skin, a purple or lilac concealer will brighten your complexion.
– Dark Undereye Circles, Bruises, Blue Veins: If you haven’t been sleeping well or constantly suffer from dark shadows under your eyes, a peach concealer will not only get rid of those dark circles but also make you look wide awake and fresh. If you have darker skin, an orange concealer will do the same job

In general, I suggest that you first apply a thin layer of foundation onto your face and then directly follow with your color correcting concealer. Once you have blended it in with a damp beautyblender or your foundation brush, add another thin layer of your regular concealer on top. Set everything with some loose powder and you are good to go!

To show you the magical effect of color correction, we tried out the new peachy-toned Space Balm Corrector by HIRO. It not only do they serve as the perfect base for your eyeshadows, but they can also be applied to the whole eye area to cancel out dark circles under your eyes and blue veins on your eye lids. It contains a mixture of red, yellow and orange hues that counteract dark shadows and will leave your skin nourished and hydrated. We used the shade ‘Thora’ on our model Sarah:
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Sarah BEFORE

Sarah AFTER

The space balm corrector comes in two shades: #003 Thora – a soft golden shade for light to medium skin tones and #005 Cora – a soft peach salmon shade for medium to dark skin tones. Depending on your skin tone you might wanna give either one a go.

Have you tried color correcting in the past? Share your experience with us in the comments below!