Easy Makeup Hacks and care for your Post-Procedure Skin

Ask any dermatologist and they’ll tell you that fall is the prime time for facial treatments. After basking in the sun all summer, the fall season is the most ideal time to repair damage done by the sun and get your skin back on track.

From laser treatments to chemical peels, to microneedling and more, there are so many types of treatments offered to help boost your skin’s glow. Depending on the treatment, along with its intensity, you might find yourself needing to cover up any bruising, peeling, or general discoloration post-procedure. Below, Sébastien Tardif, an internationally-acclaimed makeup artist and founder of Veil Cosmetics, offers his best tips and tricks for easy makeup hacks for post-procedure skin. 

How to hide bruises from laser treatments or filler

Bruising from laser treatments or filler on the face can occur, especially from a pulsed-dye laser treatment. If you do begin to bruise post-procedure, don’t panic—this likely means that the laser treatment did its job, and the skin is working to heal itself, resulting in a more natural-looking complexion. To care for the skin, you can apply an ice pack to the area right after the procedure. Additionally, using a cream with arnica might help heal the bruising faster.

Because bruising isn’t usually “raised” on the skin, it’s a bit easier to cover up with easy makeup tricks, compared to peeling skin or a raised blemish. To hide bruises after an intense laser treatment or filler treatment, Tardif suggests first using a corrector, which is a darker color than your concealer. The shade should be a peachy or pinky undertone, which will help cancel out the darker blue, purple, yellow, and brown tones that can occur during the various stages of bruising. 

“For an easy-to-do makeup tip post-procedure, I recommend starting with a sheer layer of corrector, because when you apply too much, it tends to just darken your foundation color afterward,” explains Tardif. “My easy makeup trick is to use a highlighter on top of the corrector to rebalance the darker tone before you apply your foundation. That way, you're getting a seamless color from face to neck or all over the face.” The Veil Cosmetics Complexion Fix Concealer is the perfect, lightweight, water-based highlighter product to apply on top of your corrector, before applying your Sunset Skin Liquid Foundation. This easy-to-do makeup hack will help mask where, exactly, the correction happened—and nobody will be able to tell where the bruise is.

What you don’t want to do is use a highlighter directly on top of the bruising. The highlighter is usually a shade brighter than your natural skin tone, and by applying a bright highlighter directly onto your bruise, it will make the bruise look gray, drawing even more attention to the spot. “For a more bluish purple undertone bruise, I recommend using a more yellow-orange corrector, and for the more greenish-brown purple, then I would use a more soft pink peach undertone for a natural-looking complexion,” suggests Tardif.

How to hide peeling skin after a chemical peel

Hiding peeling skin with makeup after a procedure can be a bit trickier. “When it comes to hiding peeling skin after a chemical peel or an intense laser treatment, it's really all about skincare at that point,” explains Tardif.

For a natural-looking complexion, the key to hiding peeling is to first let your skin heal post-procedure—you don’t really want to apply any sort of makeup to the skin directly after a treatment. You also want to make sure you’re using extra gentle skincare products, as you want to avoid any burning or reactions. “Seek out skincare that's fragrance-free, alcohol-free, and is free of all the usual harsh chemicals that you can find in skincare,” explains Tardif. “It's all about applying as much moisture as you can and getting your skin to hold on to that moisture overnight, so that if you have to get out and about during the day, othen you can apply easy-to-do makeup and your skin will not look completely dried out, patchy, and crusty.”

It’s best to use just a tinted moisturizer or a very lightweight concealer, such as the Complexion Fix Concealer, so that you're not exacerbating any sort of dryness on the surface of the skin. If you don’t have either of those on hand, reach for your Sunset Light Primer Serum and mix it with your favorite foundation. You can apply this mixture to your skin in a patting motion—make sure there is no rubbing with a sponge, no rubbing with a brush, no rubbing with the fingers, just tapping with your fingers or a sponge. This is the best way to avoid further peeling on the surface of your skin, while the current dry skin from your procedure will remain in place.

Can you put makeup on after microdermabrasion or microneedling?

Yes, but you want to wait a bit for your skin to heal before applying a full face of makeup. “My easy-to-do makeup tips after microdermabrasion or microneedling are, again, to let time for your skin to heal a little bit between the actual microdermabrasion or the treatment, so that you're not getting any infection,” warns Tardif. “Make sure you follow what your dermatologist or aesthetician recommends post-procedure.”

Microdermabrasion and microneedling will create more redness on the skin, so you might want to lightly veil with a soft yellow undertone, which is the easiest, most natural way to get redness to dissipate and create a more natural-looking complexion. To avoid having to use powder, choose a light sheer to medium foundation that will self-set, like the Sunset Skin Liquid Foundation—you want your skin to be able to breathe a bit as it heals.

If your undertone is naturally more on the soft pink side, Tardif suggests using a sheer to medium foundation with a soft pink undertone, which will blend a lot better with the rest of your skin. “And no, a foundation with a pink undertone is not going to add more pink to your face,” assures Tardif. “It depends on the makeup line, but at Veil, we certainly do not have pink that will add more pink—it's just meant to blend with the natural, soft pink undertone. Also, there’s no need for a corrector for this type of redness.”

It’s easy to want to hide after a facial treatment with your dermatologist or esthetician, but hiding any peeling, bruising, or general redness might be simpler than it seems. Follow Tardif’s easy-to-do makeup hacks for a natural-looking complexion post-procedure—nobody has to know!

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