CREDIT: JOSHUA R. WALLER
An entire back tattoo cover I achieved with Dermablend.

When it comes to working on the complexion, a part that often gets missed or confused is concealing. People often confuse concealers with foundations and want to apply the product all over their face, and while this could work, it doesn't create a very realistic or natural look. It is important to know that a concealer is an opaque pigment while a foundation has a somewhat translucent quality so that it appears more natural.

Concealers can be used to correct many different complexion flaws such as redness, dark circles and age spots. Concealer is so powerful, it can even be used to cover tattoos and block out eyebrows. To achieve these corrections, you need to know some basic colour theory: green cancels out red, orange cancels out blues, and yellows cancel out purples. It is also important to know that while makeup can conceal pigmentation flaws, it can never fix any raised flaws such as pimples or puffy eyes.

The most common concern women have with correcting is dark circles under the eyes. Most will try to use under-eye brighteners, which may have luminescence but also have a low concealing property since they are usually pink tones. Dark circles under the eyes usually have a blue cast to them which means you need to use an orange-tone concealer (creams work the best) to cancel out the darkness. You can then blend it out into your foundation to give it a more polished finish. Another interesting use orange concealers have is covering tattoos or blocking out eyebrows. As most tattoos contain a blue-black ink, colour correcting with an orange tone is the first step to covering a tattoo. Also, most eyebrow hair is a dark shade, which means the orange concealer really helps neutralize the colour and make it easy to cover. While most people don't cover their tattoos or conceal their eyebrows on a daily basis, you never know when a situation may arise — you may have a wedding or other special event coming up.

Look at the picture above; in it, I demonstrate how powerful concealer can be when covering a tattoo and how important it is to colour correct to fully achieve flawless finish. I took an entire back piece tattoo and covered it with one layer of orange concealer, and then layer upon layer on Dermablend (powdering in between each layer). However, if you look closely, you can still see the raised edges of the tattoo simply because makeup cannot cover that.

The next time you're applying your makeup, try using concealer as more than a spot treatment, and try it as a full corrective makeup, whether you're concealing redness or hiding a tattoo.

If you have any exciting corrective makeups you want to share, feel free to email them to joshua@jrwbeauty.com