Easy Concealer Guide: Should Concealer Be Lighter or Darker?

Tools and materials:

• Primer
• Concealer
• Foundation
• Makeup brushes

Prepping your skin before concealer

1. Apply a primer

Start by priming. You can use any primer you want.

I recommend a blurring primer that will fill in all of your pores and fine lines and smooth out your skin so when you apply your foundation, it gives you a skin-like finish

2. Apply foundation

Apply your foundation with your fingers first, and then remove any excess product with a brush. 

This way, you’re not using too much product so your skin looks good close up.

Never apply your foundation underneath your eyes because you’ll be using a concealer there and you don’t want to layer too much or it’ll cake up.

Testing Concealers: Light vs Dark vs True Match

Let’s apply the concealers. I’ll be using three different shades of concealer for this.

One is a darker shade than my skin tone, one is a lighter shade, and one is a true match. 

Darker shade

Apply the darker concealer right underneath your eyes. I’m using it to cover up my dark circles and I’m using a concealer brush instead of my fingers.

Here’s what the concealer looks like when it’s darker than the foundation. As you can see, it looks odd. 

Although you can’t use it on its own, it has a peach undertone so it can be used as a color corrector to cover up your hyperpigmentation and dark circles. 

To cover your dark circles, you’ll need to layer a true match concealer on top to get full coverage.

You’ll need a concealer a shade lighter than your skin tone to highlight underneath the eyes. 

You can also use the darker concealer as a base on your eyelids, especially when you do a smokey eye. 

Finally, you can use the darker shade to contour your face and add dimension.

Apply it to the circumference of your face and the hollows of your cheekbones to contour your jawline as well as your nose and then blend it out.

When choosing shades deeper or lighter, don’t go more than two shades away from your skin tone. It will look more natural and enhance your natural features.

Lighter shade

The lighter concealer highlights underneath the eyes but because I have dark circles, it also gives an ashy tone.

If you don’t have dark circles, you can use a lighter shade underneath your eyes to highlight them but if you do, the first step is to color correct.

Using a darker shade of concealer first will cancel out the blue undertones of your dark circles and hyperpigmentation. 

Once it’s dry, you can go back over it with the lighter shade of concealer to highlight underneath your eyes without getting those gray tones. 

You can also use a lighter shade to highlight your face.

I use it on the highest points of my cheekbones, my chin, my jawline, more forehead, as well as the bridge and tip of my nose. 

This brings all of those features forward so when the light hits your face, it’ll brighten it up and you’ll see more dimension.

You can also use the lighter shade as a base for eyeshadows. This will help lighter eyeshadows like pastels show up more.

True match concealer

The true match concealer has covered my dark circles since they’re not too dark.

If your dark circles are too dark, you might need to color-correct first. A shade that’s a true match will not highlight underneath the eyes, but it’ll cover up the dark circles so it can be used as a concealer. 

You can also use it to spot-correct around your face. Use it in areas where you have dark spots or patches and blend them out.

You can also use it as a base for eyeshadows.

My favorite way to use a true match concealer is in place of foundation.

You can use concealer and only spot correct when you don’t want too much coverage. This way, it doesn’t look like you have too much makeup on your face while still evening out your skin tone.

This technique is used when you want a no-makeup makeup or a minimalistic look.

After blending out the concealer, use a sponge or a powder puff to go around your face and blend everything seamlessly.

This will also mattify your face and remove excess product, resulting in an even base without looking heavy or cakey.

Should concealer be lighter or darker?

What do you think? Should concealer be lighter or darker?

I hope this concealer guide helps clarify when you should use the different concealer shades.

Let me know which tip is your favorite down below!

For more makeup content, check out my post on an Easy Anti-aging Hack: How to Apply Sunscreen Over Makeup.

Products used:

Cover FX Primer https://amzn.to/3JIdqOC

Dark Concealer: pretty fresh creamy concealer dark 170 n https://go.magik.ly/ml/1qtzm/

Light Concealer: Milani Concealer in 135 (medium beige) https://amzn.to/3Y0vIz9

Skin shade Concealer: Milani Concealer in 150 (natural sand) https://amzn.to/3Y0vIz9