Miaka's tips on smudge-proofing her eye makeup

Hi all!!! How have everyone been? Sorry that I went silent for a while because I was falling sick and work has been extremely busy where I had to work into the wee hours of the night in the office. This basically left me with not much energy to do anything once I reach home except to take a quick shower and throw myself onto the bed and sleep.

To be honest, I have not been hauling much so there is really no product to share in this post. But I thought I will share some of the small things that I do to prevent my eye makeup (especially eye liner and mascara) from smudging and giving me the 'panda' eyes by mid day.

So a simple introduction on my skin condition: combination and occassionally towards oily (especially in the extremely hot and humid weather in Singapore). I have very sensitive eyes (which tear often) so especially during long days in office, I will avoid eye makeup. All these are factors that contributed to my eye makeup not able to last well. Over the years, I have tried ways and means to try to preserve the eye make up and avoid smudging as much as possible and I would not say the tips I am sharing are fool proof but they do help.

1) Using waterproof mascara

Needless to say, with a waterproof mascara, smudging can be reduced to the minimum. We just have to make sure a proper oil-based eye makeup remover is used to properly clean the lashes

2) Avoid rubbing your eyes (I think this is pretty logical :))

3) Layering a light layer of powdered eyeshadow over the eyeliner (of the same shade or close)

We typically apply our eyeshadow before drawing the eyeliner as a final touch so as to get a clean, crisp line. For me, I prefer to apply my eyeshadow, draw my eyeliner and THEN lightly apply a thin layer of powdered eyeshadow over the liner (using the same colour or close). I find that the eyeshadow powder helps to 'set' the liner in (similar concept to using powder to set the liquid foundation). You just have to take note to use a light hand and dap on the powder eyeshadow using a thin brush so that the liner will still remain as a clean crisp line and not a smudged smokey look to be.

I have tried this method over my HG Chanel Stylo Yeux waterproof eyeliner, Bobbi Brown gel eyeliner as well as K Palette liquid eyeliner and it certain minimise smudging to a huge extent. However, for ladies who love the sharp and intense dark liner on their eyes, you might not like this method since the layering of the eyeshadow over the liner will soften the line.

4) Using a powder puff instead of loose powder brush to set your loose powder after liquid foundation

My rationale of using a powder puff instead of brush to set the loose powder is that the puff covers the moist portion of your face better thus your face is 'drier' and less prone to smudging. Think of it this way, when you use a puff to roll the powder over the foundation, you roll and set it in. However, when you use a brush and dust the powder on, the powder just stays on and does not seems to really settle in.

You might be concerned that you might be pushing more powder into your pores which will end up with more blackheads and all but with proper makeup removal, it should not be a problem.

5) Powder your undereye lightly for touch up

When your undereye is kept 'dry' with light touch up, smudging can be minimises since the surface is dry and does not 'attract' the pigments from your eye makeup.

I hope the tips I shared above will be helpful to you. Given the different skin conditions and products that we are using, results may defer though. :)