Colour-correcting beauty products have gained a lot of traction in recent years as the solution to an even complexion.
While we believe in letting our natural beauty shine through, it’s good to know you can boost your confidence by eliminating redness or hiding the dark circles.
Here, we have the ultimate guide to colour-correcting, which colours will work for you, and how you can incorporate it into your beauty routine.
How does colour correcting work?
Colour-correcting products work by eliminating or disguising certain hues on your skin by using the opposite colours to counteract them. If you look at the colour wheel and then at some colour-correcting beauty items, you’ll see the link. These colours are considered complementary, but when one is applied over the other, it’ll counteract it and cancel it out.
One of the most common shades people want to cover is redness in the skin. On the colour wheel, green is the opposite of red. This means if you have shades of red or pink in your skin, a green colour-corrector will banish them and even out your skin tone.
A guide to colour correcting colours
While every colour has a counteracting shade, there are some tones that aren’t common in our skin. Below are the most common correcting colours and what they can help you counteract.
- Green: if you have a cool skin tone that’s prone to redness or pinkness, or you have some blemishes you want to cover up, green is the shade for you.
- Pink or peach: a blend of pink, red, and orange hues, peach and pink colour-correctors are a common shade and help to disguise blue and purple tones, usually under the eyes, on lighter skin tones.
- Orange: more saturated orange shades work to counteract blue tones on darker skin – this is commonly used under the eyes but can also tackle pigmentation in other areas.
- Yellow: got purple veins, under-eye circles, or blemishes that have a violet hue? Yellow colour-corrector will be your best friend.
- Purple: on the flipside, purple can counteract any yellow tones and sallowness in your skin. This means it’s got skin-brightening benefits, too.
How to use colour correctors in your routine
Now that you understand how colour-correcting works and which tones will address your concerns, how do you add it to your beauty and self-care routine?
In your make-up routine
You’ll usually find colour-correcting in primers and concealers, which are already used for covering blemishes and imperfections. Use these products under your foundation to cancel out any unwanted tones before you apply it, or wear them without a base product for a fresh-faced glow.
You can also find hybrid products, including skin tints, CC creams, and foundations, that have been created with colour-correcting actives to cancel out redness and dark circles as they add pigment. For a finishing touch, opt for a setting powder that has correcting colours in it for the ultimate even base.
In your skincare routine
Colour correcting has made its way through our beauty routine from start to finish and is now working its way into our skincare products. Peach-toned eye creams, which temporarily brighten up dark circles while the active ingredients get to work, have been around for a long time. We’re now seeing banana-yellow products designed to do the same thing.
New formulations of moisturisers and face creams are tinged with green, peach, and purple hues as they work to reduce unwanted tones in our skin in both the short and long term without a clear pigment. Tinted moisturisers have also had a makeover, promising a natural, even glow that suits our skin tone instead of the orange, one-shade ranges we were once limited to.
In your wider beauty routine
Make-up and skincare can help us cancel out pigmentation on our face, but what about the rest of our body? If you tan as part of your self-care routine, you’ll be pleased to know that you can now find colour-correcting tanning products, meaning you can get an all-over even glow in your beauty routine.
Colour-correcting self-tanners, which can include tanning water, work with the most common skin concerns by shade. Lighter skin tones often deal with dullness and can turn orange with the wrong shade, so peach actives counteract this. Green colour-correcting tans can work for any skin tone but especially suit medium skin, while violet brightens up darker tones. Is there anything that colour-correcting actives can’t improve?
Our beauty routines are a way for us to practise some self-love and spend some quality time looking after ourselves. As well as offering a few precious moments to be mindful and present, we can nourish our bodies and even tackle our skin concerns. Colour-correcting can be added to any part of your beauty routine – so if you’ve had a few late nights studying or partying (hey, no judgement), or you have some post-acne pigmentation, you can banish them in an instant.
Photo by Raphael Lovaski on Unsplash
Sources
https://www.secretsinbeauty.com/makeup-colour-correction/
https://www.birchbox.com/magazine/article/color-correcting
https://www.makeup.com/product-and-reviews/concealer/color-correcting-concealer
Author: Mandy Kloppers
Mandy is a qualified therapist who treats depression, anxiety, OCD, PTSD, trauma, and many other types of mental health issues. She provides online therapy around the world for those needing support and also provides relationship counselling.
