Today I was looking at the pix from a friend’s wedding – which, incidentally, was one of the hugest weddings of the 20th century – and almost every one of them showed my makeup as patchy, chalky, with horrible white flour-like spots everywhere. Needless to say, this evoked pure hysteria, given that I had managed to circulate through some 10,000 people (yes! this wedding was that mammoth) for five days looking like a badly uncoordinated orangutan had taken a paint brush to my face.
Fortunately, my makeup artist friend called just before I flung myself out of the window, with a panic-subsiding explanation: I was using mineral makeup for this occasion, which reflects light very easily. It looks absolutely fine in natural lighting but when you take a photo and the flash goes off, suddenly that’s all you’re seeing – a big reflection of powder.
The same thing happens with silica-based sunscreens and powders, which have white undertones and are very pigmented. And that’s even more of a bummer as silica-based products are sometimes your only hope of keeping the face grease-free through a hot and humid evening. That’s why you see this happening to celebs so often, as evident in the pix here. At least I have makeup stalwarts like Angelina Jolie, Nicole Kidman, Miley Cyrus and Eva Longoria for company!
The solution to flour face makeup faux pas?
The simplest solution is to just check yourself before heading out! Turn off the lights and take a photo of your face with a flash camera – this will help identify any rogue floury-looking areas and you’ll be able to correct them before heading out of the door and confronting a camera. Because photos, after all, are always half the fun, aren’t they?
What’s the most terrible makeup disaster that you’ve ever had the bad luck to run into?
Name withheld says
I have never seen this on anyone. What is the point of this article? And your solution is check yourself in the mirror. Are you joking?
María says
I have never seen this, save for some pics from red carpets in the 2000s and the early 2010s. But there’s something I’ve seen quite often and it seems we can’t correct it: Many girls’ eyeshadow look like a shiny white spot ( unlike this chalky effect you’ve shared here) above their eyes. And I’ve seen it when they’re suppossed to be wearing colored eyeshadow, not white. To make things worse, it’s not only visible in pictures, you see it “un the flesh”, so you wonder if they noticed it while having their make up done and didn’t care,