March 12, 2014

Jimmie Has A Problem

crayolaj74 Hair, Makeup and Beauty Correcting Facial Redness, Experimenting with concealer, Sisters 2 Comments

You’ve all met Jimmie. She’s my favorite, and yours, too! Jimmie has a problem, and she has made it my mission to solve it. This post, and possibly a few more, are going to be dedicated to this problem, and with any luck, I can have Jimmie on her way to being free of this annoying issue.

Jimmie, to me, is absolutely beautiful. She’s tall, blonde, and curvy. She has bouncy, shiny, blonde hair, beautiful blue eyes, and nice, slim arms (I have hams). She has perfectly white teeth, and the most contagious smile ever. I have always looked up to her, being the little sister and all. I used to strive to fix my hair as great as Jimmie, dress as cute as Jimmie, and further annoy her by ‘borrowing’ her clothes. I usually adhered strictly to the policy that it was easier to get forgiveness than permission, so that was particularly frustrating for her. Anyway, she’s the bomb-diggity, and I’m sure all who know her agree.

However, just like the rest of us, Jimmie has a few things that she does not like about her appearance. One of these things is her rosy cheeks. To some, this may sound like a good thing, but to Jimmie, it is not. She is fair-skinned, has light eyes and hair, and seeing all the redness in her cheeks does not make her a happy camper. She has asked me on more than one occasion to help her with this problem, since I am her go-to person for all things beauty, and I have not been very helpful at all. Aside from reading up on the subject online, I have yet to try any products or test any theories, so her problem persists.

So, I am not going to wait around for the perfect solution to miraculously slap me in the face. I’m going to take action, and help her solve her problem. Actually, she is going to help me solve her problem, I’m just going to tell her what to do. I am going to help her get some products together, and some knowledge, and some simple household items, and she is going to have to be the test dummy. Together, we will either prove or disprove all the suggestions I can find online.

First, I’d like to remind you that some facial redness can be caused by Rosacea or another skin condition that requires medical treatment. Jimmie has not been diagnosed with any sort of skin ailments, and it seems that her redness comes from within. It’s more like blushing; her face just flushes sometimes and she can’t seem to figure out any triggers or what helps. If you suspect you may have a medical condition, or you have itching or burning on your skin, you should first see a doctor and rule out any conditions that you could exacerbate by using topical products that your skin isn’t familiar with. Okay, disclaimer done.

Here are some things I already knew, thanks to my cosmetology training and interest in makeup:
1) Using green to counteract red is widely recommended, which comes from basic art classes from grade school. If you remember the color wheel, you know that green is opposite red, which means you can cool down red with green and warm up green with red. This is a trick that Jimmie has tried in the past, and we haven’t yet found a green concealer that actually does eliminate redness. Usually, the mixture creates greyness, or sometimes brown-ness. Ew. I found this website called makeuptalk.com, and it’s basically a Q&A forum for all things beauty. I swiped a screen shot of this,

because it just seemed to make sense.  The commenter was “vogueboy”, and it says there that he is a professional makeup artist.  Thanks, vogueboy!  Jimmie and I are going to try some things, and see if you may be right!

2) Using a full-coverage foundation can really hide redness. Jimmie doesn’t love most full-coverage foundations, and neither do I. We’re going to play around with the airbrush, hopefully this weekend, and see what kind of coverage I can get with the Temptu S/B makeup. Airbrush makeup is so light, not thick or heavy like some foundations. Jimmie’s skin is oily, and she hasn’t found many full-coverage foundations that don’t make that worse. I think we need a trip makeup shopping!

Here are some things I did not know, but learned while researching this subject online:

1) Facial redness can be caused by hormonal imbalance, too much niacin in your diet, stress, or food allergies. Who knew? I learned this here. I also learned a neat trick that I want Jimmie to try: the author suggests putting an ice-cube in your mouth and letting it melt when the flushing begins. Cool, huh? I’m going to make Jimmie try that, just to see if it works.

Actually, that’s it.  Everything else I could find, I already knew.  So, I have come to the conclusion that you can waste a lot of time researching when you could be experimenting!  That will be next on our path to solving Jimmie’s problem, and since we have scheduled in some sister time this weekend, you will get to hear all about it next week, I hope!

Have you tried anything for facial redness that works?  If you have, let us know in the comments.  I’ll bet that Jimmie and I will try it…and let you know what we think.  Thanks for reading, and have a happy Wednesday!

Love,

Martie

X,O,X,O