Do you know the 3 C's of makeup? And by makeup, I'm talking about primer, concealer, foundation, or face powder, not lips or eyes. The 3 C's are cover, conceal, and camouflage. But regular makeup and makeup application doesn't really hide acne. In fact, it can make it look worse... and even make it worse... despite what you want to believe. So let's see why makeup is destined to fail at hiding acne... why perhaps you're only fooling yourself... and how you can have better makeup use and application if you do have acne.
At certain ages, acne is part of life. Almost everyone experiences it.
99% plus!
And by the way, the age spectrum of acne keeps growing... still starting at the beginning of adolescence... but now stretching to the age where pimples are meeting wrinkles...
But regardless of age, just because all of your friends have acne, that doesn't make you feel any better if you do.
Your goal is to get rid of every pimple, but until you can, the second best plan is to try to hide them, by concealing or covering pimples, right?
Wrong!
Conceal, cover... That does sound like the 3C's of makeup.
What makeup does best is concealing or covering discolorations of your skin. After pimples heal, it's not unusual to have flat discolorations where they were. They can be red, pink, tan, or brown, and are easily hidden with makeup.
But that's after acne calms down and is healing. What about active erupting and ongoing pimples, cysts, white heads and blackheads?
Makeup can't hide them because they're raised above the surface of the surrounding skin. Makeup can hide the color of acne, but it can't hide the bumps. It even often makes them look more obvious and can even make them worse or cause more acne, depending on the ingredients in the makeup.
Anything that's raised... and all the active acne lesions I mentioned are raised...
Anything that's raised is visible because of the shadows it causes when light hits it. Sure your makeup helps hide the discoloration of active acne bumps, but it coats the top and sides of the bumps so they actually are slightly larger and that makes them more conspicuous because that causes more obvious shadows. It's just like the way mascara makes you lashes more obvious, makeup makes your pimples look more obvious.
So, if you're going to continue to use makeup to try to hide your acne, first make sure it's water based, oil free, or noncomedogenic, so it doesn't cause more acne. And second, use much less, and focus on color correction, because nothing hides the bumps, no matter how thick you apply it... and paradoxically, the thicker you apply it, the worse your acne will look.
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