The Hack | Using Red Lipstick to Hide Dark Circles

When I saw this hack I was a bit stumped. I've heard of colour correcting, obviously, but I had just never ever thought to put red lipstick under my eyes. Has anyone else? Anyway, this hack seems to be everywhere I look at the moment so I thought I had better give it a good go and report back...

If you haven't heard of this before - basically I believe it came from a YouTuber called Deepica Mutyala who put a video up of this back in January (I could be wrong btw but I think this is where it all started). You can see the video here, but she basically explains why she's doing it and how she does it.

The idea is this, red is supposed to counteract the dark bluish, purple circles under your eyes - or anywhere else. They're opposite each other on the colour wheel, so are supposed to neutralise the other. Hence this hack. So, following Deepica's advice I decided to give this a while. I will hold my hands up and say my dark circles don't look awful on here - but I blame the sun because this day I'd had like 3 hours sleep and looked like a zombie...

Anyway, the first step is picking the right red. Give a few things a whirl and see what suits your skin tone best, also think about the finish. I ended up going for the Rimmel Kate Moss in 01, your typical red basically. It also has a matte finish, which is good because my undereyes get quite shiny so I don't wanna use a glossier finish of lipstick. Then take an eyeshadow brush/concealer brush - I used the Real Techniques Deluxe Crease Brush, brush along the lipstick and then apply all over under your eyes - you will literally look like you've been punched in the face. Not lying...

Once you're happy with the coverage, you're then supposed to carry on your make up routine as normal. This is where my "meh" phase comes in. Now I usually do foundation, concealer... However, with this I had to do foundation, lipstick, increased amount of concealer.Why? Well, using my usual amount of concealer didn't mask the red - I still had punched eye face really, so I had to use a lot, and I was using the Collection Lasting Perfection Concealer so that is known for amazing coverage. Blending it in then wasn't a problem. 

In terms of the result, there was a difference between the eye with red lipstick and the eye without - the eye with stayed matte for longer under the eyes and the coverage did stay longer. I did also find that the eye without definitely looked darker from the off. So it does make a difference, however - I'm not sure it makes enough of a difference for me personally to include this in my every day routine. Maybe just those one off mornings where I've had no sleep...