Ok. So firsly I'll offer my apologies for the cruddy quality of the header image, but come on - how could I not use a reference from '13 going on 30' for this post?! No other photography was going to cut the mustard here - Jenna Rink was the ultimate way forward to sum it all up. I have no idea why I've decided to type this post - call it a spur of the moment ramble - but I was reminiscing about my early teenage years after stumbling upon a rather battered Barry M Dazzle Dust - (more on those in a moment...) and simply had to share some of my makeup mishaps with you from back in the day. Why? Because I know for a FACT you've made them too. I'm an early 90's child so please bare in mind that my experience is taken from those good old days before beauty blogs and YouTube even existed - I'm sure some of my younger readers haven't made these blunders! So sit back and feel free have a good chuckle at my past makeup misfortunes - I do hope it manages to conjure up some fond memories of your own school years... It certainly did for me! Now, I'd better wrap up this introduction before I get caught up in the moment and swiftly go and grab myself some Dream Matte Mousse for old times sake ;)....
Choosing your foundation shade purely by name. There was no swatching, no 'natural daylight test' and no pre-purchase review reading. Ohhh no - your badass younger-self chose foundation based on whatever shade-name sounded remotely like your skin colour. OR, if you were really throwing caution to the wind, your shade of choice was probably settled with 'sand...hmm...I like beaches...I like sand! Therefore, '04 sand' is perfect...' Wrong. So wrong. In truth, you were more of a '01 True Ivory' kinda gal but the name just wasn't as appealing, ya know?
Choosing your foundation shade purely by name. There was no swatching, no 'natural daylight test' and no pre-purchase review reading. Ohhh no - your badass younger-self chose foundation based on whatever shade-name sounded remotely like your skin colour. OR, if you were really throwing caution to the wind, your shade of choice was probably settled with 'sand...hmm...I like beaches...I like sand! Therefore, '04 sand' is perfect...' Wrong. So wrong. In truth, you were more of a '01 True Ivory' kinda gal but the name just wasn't as appealing, ya know?
Using foundation as a form of fake tan. Ok. So maybe you weren't exactly aware of your foundation shade mishap and maybe this wasn't your intention, but at some stage in your life, I bet you've used a foundation waaaay too dark for your skin and tried to make it work. This was probably in your first year of secondary school when, in a bid to look like the school 'it girl', you dash off to Boots and buy the first bottle of foundation you see. It's far too dark and far too orange but you roll with it anyway and wonder why you look like a streaky mess after a rather taxing hour of PE. Similarly, at some stage in our lives, I bet we've all had that bright idea of buying a shade darker than our usual foundation shade because, in theory, it should make us look a little more 'sunkissed'. It's a mistake everyone needs to make. Once you've made it, you'll never deliberately make it again.
The inevitable over-plucking of the eyebrows. Ohhhh eyebrows. I apologise for the way I mis-treated you during my teenage years but when you're 13 and armed with an eyebrow plucker, all manner of eyebrow crimes are committed. Crimes that, although you have no idea at the time, you will still be paying for in your mid-twenties. It's thanks to my 13 year old 'YOLO' moment with my mother's tweezers that I now have to spend that extra 5 minutes of a morning filling in my sparse, barely there arches - attempting to craft a decent eyebrow shape from powder and wax instead of actual, physical eyebrow hairs.
The inevitable ignoring of said eyebrows. There comes a time in one's life when you realise that eyebrows are actually pretty important, who would have thought?! All of a sudden you have this life-changing epiphany moment when you realise that your eyebrows have the power to make or break your entire face. Of course, throughout your teens you think it's all about the kohl eyeliner and fail to even do so much as lightly groom your poor brows with a pencil. 10 years later, you'll look back, cringe at photographs and realise you looked more like Mr Potato Head than that 'J-Lo' sultry look you were going for. With or without the kohl eyeliner. Lesson learnt. Never. Neglect. The Eyebrows.
GLITTER OVERLOAD. Again, this was probably in your early secondary school years. The good old days when you spent months and months planning your show-stopping outfit for the annual school disco, swapping notes under the table with your friends whilst you discussed, in great detail complete with tick-boxes, which denim skirt/gypsy top combo would be most likely to help you succeed at catching the attention of that Year 5 boy you're completely head over heels in love with (for realzzz). The night you've been waiting for arrives and you completely drown yourself in glitter of all kinds - glitter hair mascara and Barry M Dazzle Dusts aplently! And who remembers those body glitter roll ons?! Who even invented those?! GENIUS! Now there was maximum glitter potential and even more hope of luring in all the boiizzz with your dazzling, mesmerising sparkle. Now, I'm all for a bit of glitter but in reality, you just looked like a unicorn threw up on you.
Treating 'Sugar' Magazine's beauty tips as GOSPEL. Ohhh yes. Who remembers this little gem?! Long before your mother allowed you to read Cosmo (heaven forbid, the sex tips section) your monthly treat was Sugar magazine - with its fail-safe flirting tips and flow-chart quizzes galore! Whatever Sugar magazine told you, you did it. To be fair, it's probably where you got the idea for that body glitter roll-on...
Thinking that translucent powder was the miracle of life! There's also a moment when you discover powder in all it's glory. Probably sometime around Year 9 when you begin to spot all the popular girls powdering their face mid-biology sesh with a sponge and mirror compact. Of course, you simply must do this too. Even if you have a seriously dry skin-type and could probably do with a dose of moisturiser instead. You fail to understand the t-zone rule and the fact that, in general, powder needs to be applied sparingly to set your makeup but instead you use yours as a form of foundation. You pile it on in the understanding that it's supposed to cover blemishes and feel slight confusion when you end up looking a little bit dusty... Quick! Someone get the Pledge!
Blend? Who needs to blend?! Sometimes, you forget there was life before your professional blending brushes... But ohhh there was! You simply used your fingers or those free plastic sponge thingymajiggys and hoped for the best. Your hadn't got the foggiest what an 'eye crease brush' was or how on earth to properly apply an eyeshadow - you just piled it on. It also took you a good year or so to realise the importance of blending foundation into your neck...
This fake tan wipe is a really good idea... There comes a time, probably before that much anticipated school disco, when you discover that miraculous invention - the fake tan wipe. In fact, you probably threw it in your basket along with that body glitter roll on 2 days prior to the event of the century. There's no doubt that a fake-tan wipe is a great idea in theory, but for a 14 year old without a pair of protective gloves and zero fake-tan experience it's a recipe for a bronzing disaster. Not only do you end up smelling like a digestive, but you have to face going to school the next day with streaky arms, a patchy face and rather toxic looking fingernails.
The black kohl-liner/white eyeshadow combo. Surely it couldn't have just been my school where the whole white shadow/kohl liner thing was in vogue? You lined your inner-eyelids with cheap kohl pencil (the blackest of blacks you could find) until they watered, topped it up after every lesson (because heaven forbid, your natural eyelid began to show through) and at the end of the day it congealed in the corners of your eyes and you resembled some sort of Avril Lavigne/panda/pirate/eye casualty mash-up - but that's ok, because it's all about definition, right? You coupled this fetching look with stark white eyeshadow (sometimes with a dash of glitter if you were feeling rather experimental) which contrasted really nicely with your black kohl overload...
Buying products purely because everyone else did. Ok. Who remembers the 'Maybelline Dream Matte Mousse' era? *sheepishly raises hand* I do. Surely it wasn't just my school? It graced the inside of every school bag in the area - mine included. I'm not by any means knocking Dream Matte Mousse - but back in the day, you didn't quite grasp the concept of skin types did you? It was a nightmare for dry skins and probably wasn't the best option for teenage skin - but we all bought it anyway simply because it was the product of the moment. The same went for Miss Sporty lipgloss, black glitter nail polish and that bloomin' kohl liner - the blacker and smudgier the better.
So there we have it, a small selection of the makeup mishaps I made in my early teenage years. When you actually sit and think about how much trial and error you went through in your younger years, it just goes to show much there is to learn about cosmetics and beauty industry - we all have to start somewhere! I guess you could say (in the words of Drake), 'we started from the bottom, now we're here' (oooosh) - with a beauty blog, a rather sizable collection of makeup brushes and not a single sponge eyeshadow applicator in sight...
Have you made any of these Make-Up mistakes when you were younger?
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