This is the third and final step of my guide to get­ting rid of dark cir­cles: how to hide your cir­cles while they’re dis­ap­pear­ing from your lovely face!

So hope­fully you have already read the first part of the guide. If not, I highly sug­gest you read Dark Cir­cles — Gone for Good! Part I first, as it will explain how to get rid of cir­cles with­out hav­ing to dis­guise them everyday.

PICKING A QUALITY CONCEALER

This really depends on your pref­er­ences. I like cream con­ceal­ers because they’re easy to apply and they just glide nicely over the del­i­cate skin of the under eye area. I have also just started using min­eral pow­der to con­ceal the area and I actu­ally like it just as well. Lately, if I’ve skimped on proper sleep or green veg­gies and need a lit­tle cov­er­age for my bluish-purple cir­cles, I’ll use Alima Pure Satin Matte Foun­da­tion min­eral makeup in Neu­tral 01 ($1.50 for a gen­er­ous sam­ple, $20 full-size) and fol­low it up with a light dust­ing of their Satin Fin­ish­ing Pow­der in Yuki ($1 for a sam­ple size, $15 full-size). I’ve also tried using 100% Pure’s Fruit Pig­mented Con­ceal­ers in Creme and White Peach ($20 and $21) under­neath the min­eral pow­ders, and that works well — I found that I get less creas­ing that way (I tend to smile a lot, and I’m not going to stop just so I get less con­cealer creases haha).

I rec­om­mend you look up some qual­ity, nat­ural con­ceal­ers from 100% Pure, Alima, nveyECO, Dr. Hauschka, Liv­ing Nature, Suki, or The All Nat­ural Face (I can’t wait to try some her of stuff). That’s the first step, because get­ting a con­cealer that will con­ceal effec­tively and not dump a bunch of junk chem­i­cals into your blood is very impor­tant. When select­ing a color, go for the best match to your skin tone, or one shade lighter (I like to go right with my skin tone, since my expe­ri­ence is that the lighter col­ors always make it obvi­ous you’re wear­ing make-up…it can even look like a reverse racoon).

Bear in mind you also want to select a color that will can­cel out that of your cir­cles. So, if yours are blue or pur­ple like mine, use a yellow-toned con­cealer. If your cir­cles are brown or yel­low, use a peach-tinted con­cealer. Your other option is to use a color cor­rect­ing (also called “color bal­anc­ing”) pow­der or cream under­neath your reg­u­lar skin-toned con­cealer. This works great as well, and many of the com­pa­nies I listed above offer color cor­rect­ing cos­met­ics. (And if you have any prod­uct sug­ges­tions, leave a com­ment, I’d love to know about it!)

STEP-BY-STEP CONCEALING FOR YOUR UNDER-EYE CIRCLES

Step 3. The “Tri­an­gle Method” for Concealing

Step 1. Apply a qual­ity eye cream with your ring fin­ger or a soft brush (I love 100% Pure and Talu­lah eye creams, and some­times I’ll use plain ole’ jojoba oil). Be gen­tle! Let it sit for 5–10 min­utes so it absorbs properly.

Step 2. Using a con­cealer brush (I use Alima and Sigma brushes), apply your color cor­recter over your cir­cles. Don’t for­get the inside cor­ner of your eye. Skip this step if you’re using a yel­low– or peach-tinted concealer.

Step 3. Using a con­cealer brush, apply your cream or pow­der con­cealer, draw­ing an upside-down tri­an­gle under each eye. Fill in the tri­an­gle with con­cealer. Remem­ber to get the inside cor­ner of your eyes as well. See the pic­ture above for clar­i­fi­ca­tion on this Tri­an­gle Method.

Step 4. Use a wedge sponge or a clean brush to blend out the edges of the con­cealer. If your cov­er­age gets cakey, put a tiny bit of your eye cream on a cot­ton swab (q-tip) and dab it onto the cakey part.

Step 5. If your under-eye area has a deeper line (appears sunken in), apply a high­light­ing pow­der or fluid over the area to bring in some light.

Step 6. To set your con­cealer, apply a layer of min­eral pow­der over the top. I use a fin­ish­ing pow­der, as I men­tioned above.

OPTIONAL STEP. If you like wear­ing eye­shadow, there are some col­ors that will fur­ther help to keep atten­tion away from your under-eyes. Use a gold, gold-flecked, gold-brown, or rich brown color on your lids if you have blue or pur­ple cir­cles. For yel­low and brown cir­cles, go for taupe. As a gen­eral rule, use a shim­mery shadow on your lid. Use a white eye­shadow, white eye­liner pen­cil, shim­mer pow­der, or high­light­ing liq­uid right on the inside cor­ner of both eyes. If you’re com­fort­able lin­ing your water­line, do so with a white eye­liner pen­cil to help fur­ther brighten your eyes and draw atten­tion away from any dark­ness underneath.

And you’re all done!