What has been your most embarrassing makeup-related moment?

Oh, the worst is whenever I forget to put mascara on. That’s happened a few times, even so far as taking photos for the blog I won’t realize for at least a few dozen shots! I’ve also had plenty of makeup fade, crease, fallout, and otherwise look terrible within hours of wearing it, but since I consider it my job to test it, I don’t get embarrassed over it!

— Christine

39 Comments

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Becca Avatar

I work in a hot environment. And there are so many times I’ve forgotten to put on waterproof/sweatproof makeup and I’ve ended up a mess within an hour. Not cute. It’s gotten to the point now where everyone just expects it from me, so I wear my dripping face with pride.

Seraphine Avatar

Here are three I can think of right now: (1) My non-makeup-wearing sister pointed out—in public and without any discretion—that I hadn’t blended my foundation well on my jawline. (2) Another time, I was at a big party at a restaurant and when I went to the ladies room I discovered that my red lipstick had somehow gotten not just on my teeth, but in between them so it looked kind of like my gums were bleeding. This has never happened before or since, and I have no idea how it happened! (3) Recently, I had done an amazing eye look for a night out. While we were out, my left eye started watering horribly from the outside corner. I lost all makeup within a half inch radius of that corner—concealer, liner, mascara, eyeshadow…all gone and replaced by redness. There was no way to touch it up because of the constant flow of tears from that corner of my eye. I was wearing my hair parted on the side, so I let it fall over that eye for the rest of the night.

Alana Avatar

Just the thought of it makes me shudder.

Probably around 5 years ago I was working in retail and became friends with a Lancôme Representative and I asked her if she could help me find a match in a eye brow pencil. She helped me find one and even showed me how to use it, and it was really kind and sweet of her! However, it was a medium brown that had a verrrrrrry strong red undertone, (I have dark brown hair and fair skin). So for the next few months I went about my life with these horribly matched eyebrows until one evening I was enjoying dinner with my family and my dad asked me, “Why are your eyebrows red?” My mother quickly shushed him saying it was rude and I was just speechless. I actually THANKED him for saying something as I wish others would have said something sooner. When we got home I started looking through recent pictures and I felt sick to my stomach. I must have not noticed how strong the red undertone was in artificial lighting, I’m not sure, but in all the pics they just looked sooooo off. I stopped wearing any product in my eyebrows for years because honestly I’d rather have sparse brows than brows that didn’t match at all. It wasn’t until two years ago that I found my perfect match thanks to the sweetest representative at my local Sephora.

Anne Avatar

Lipstick: On my teeth or bled into lines.
Mascara: Flakes everywhere.
Brows: So not matching.
Eyeshadow: Hood crease problems.

But the most embarrassing? New DS foundation pooled into tiny dots ALL OVER my face. I probably wore it that way in public for 4 hours or so before I became aware of it. No one said a word. It was really, really ridiculously ugly. No one could have missed it.

BonnieBBon Avatar

Oh Lisa!! I don’t know if I should laugh or hug you! Here’s both ?? I bet nobody else noticed but I can imagine the cringe factor! I’m an embarrassment waiting to happen everyday so I feel ya. I went on a first date a couple years ago and was so nervous I completely didn’t notice I only had mascara on one eye… When I realized, we were at dinner and I didn’t even have my emergency makeup bag bc I was using a little fancy clutch for my big date. Oooh I can feel the burning cheeks of embarrassment all over again!

Pearl Avatar

I was going to a nice restaurant for dinner with family one evening and had a makeover done earlier in the day. I touched up my lipstick and gloss on the way to the restaurant. I did it just like the MUA had done earlier – put lipstick on and to give it that extra pouty look, I added a dab of thick, clear gloss to the center of my bottom lip, just like the MUA had done. Apparently I added way too much becuase over the next hour, I developed a Colonel Sanders gloss goatee and no one told me! I only found out because I had gone to the bathroom right before I thought the food would arrive and looked in the mirror to find this glossy, globby triangle oozing toward my chin. I was mortified.

Darlene Avatar

I was just getting over being sick and I wore the Dior lash primer to work without the mascara over it. Work colleagues were telling me they could tell I had been sick by my eyes. I didn’t realize until I was home that I forgot the mascara. They probably thought I had grey eyelashes.

Tessa Avatar

All of mine have to do with my lips and eating. My lip/ chin geometry pretty much ensures I’ll get lipstick on my chin unless I wipe it off before my meal. Not even the long-wearing liquid lipsticks are really safe — and I hate how they dry out my already dry lips — because the tiniest oil/fat in food will break down the lipcolor.

At this point I’m 99% likely to remember to dab my lips before a meal, but if I forget… whoops. Helloooo, bright smudgey line on the top of my chin.

Karen Avatar

My most embarrassing makeup moments would be;
filling in half an eyebrow,
forgetting mascara
unknowingly have lipstick on my chin,
having my eyeliner smudged/melting into some weird raccoon eye formation
Having one eye darker than the other, due to lighting
I always forget to look at myself in the mirror during the day…

Ana Maria Avatar

I also forget to put mascara on a couple of times 😆 It didn’t looked that bad, but my eyes looked odd with the lashes having no definition.
I never had something really embarrassing, just the normal flaking of mascara, cakey foundation, trying a foundation sample that wasn’t truly my shade, lipstick smudging, etc. And also there was that liquid eyeliner (L’Oreal Paris Infallible Paints) that lost pigmentation during the day so my cat-fling was a contiguous line no more, but still managed to transfer a little on my eyelid (I have a slight hooded eye); that cat eye was a beaten down stray.

Nancy T Avatar

The most recent one would have to be buying the. Fenty Profilt’r foundation shade that Sephora’s Color IQ had matched me to, 260, based on the 2Y07 results. And it turned over the course of a few hours into a floating orange hued head without my realizing how bad it looked. Should have stuck with the Lancome Teint Idole Foundation N360 even though that didn’t match my results! It always looked flawless, even though.

AB Avatar

Happen every so often: mascara smudges, slightly uneven liner one eye to another, lipstick goes off-target.

Single incidents: two come to mind:
– Accidentally (in haste, in the dark) used dark blue eyeliner instead of eyebrow pencil. I spotted it in the car en route to work and got off what I could a cleaning wipe I had with me but all day felt it stilled showed just a little
– Luggage was delayed and I had to buy any makeup I could from hotel shop for meetings taking place afternoon of arrival; it was in another country and the quality was only so-so, and I know I looked odd with extra thick lashes and sparkly eyeshadow.

Sarah Avatar

Orange, oxidized foundation is one. I couldn’t wait to get home and scrub my face! There was another time I applied my blush far too heavy-handedly and my lighting at home said, “Oh hey, you look great!” The lighting in the real world was a completely different matter. I spent the day looking and feeling like Trixie Mattel.

Don’t get me wrong I love Trixie Mattel but I can’t pull that look at work.

No one said anything though, which made me feel a little less self conscious.

Seraphine Avatar

Ugh, the orange face…I’ve had that happen, too. Revlon Colorstay is a major offender for me. Looks great at first, but then I slowly turn into an Oompa Loompa as the day wears on.

I admit that despite the decades of makeup experience I have, I still struggle a bit to get the perfect amount of blush onto my cheeks. Recently, I was very careful putting on blush in the morning. It looked great. But while I was driving, I checked my face in the mirror and it looked like I had no blush on at all, so at the next light, I swiped some more blush onto my cheeks. When I got to work and looked at myself in the bathroom, I looked like a clown!

Stephanie Avatar

No me but a co-worker who still laughs about this one and doesn’t mind me sharing this. I went into her office and broke out laughing. Good thing we are friends in makeup, as well as co-workers. She wears a headset and on taking it off had picked bright red lipstick up on the mouthpiece and dragged it from chin to forehead leaving a red streak behind it.

Tammy Avatar

Lipstick that gets outside the corners of my mouth. It doesn’t matter what type of formula I’m using, and I’m always so paranoid about it!

Deborah S. Avatar

Gosh there are so many it is hard to figure out which one would be the most embarrassing. I have had mascara smear all over giving me exaggerated raccoon eyes. I have had lipstick smear onto my chin when eating a burger, butt mouth from liquid lipsticks that wear off weird and so many others. I would have to say that the episode where I tried to recreate a makeup look that I wore practically daily in the 70’s and on which I received daily compliments but which just doesn’t work on my older, more mature face. I use to use a black eye pencil and really work it into the socket and then use a grey liquid liner to highlight the lash lines and layered on the mascara. Now that my lids are so hooded it just looks like I got beat up. It was embarrassing when I saw myself in the mirror.

Wendy Avatar

Once when I forgot mascara and realized it when I was almost at work, I actually stopped at a drugstore to buy a tube just for that day!

Denise S. Avatar

I tripped on the pavement on my way to the library oneway. I was a little shaken up but kept going. Unknown to me my red lip stick had smeared all over my face, lol. Sadly nobody mentioned it and I went around with that look for a couple of hours. I looked quite crazy,lol

Deborah Avatar

My surprising makeup fail was forgetting my mascara! I really was shocked because I have been wearing mascara 45+ years and never had forgotten it until that one time last year. I stopped by a drug store once I realized it and promptly purchased and applied my missing mascara!

Lesley Avatar

In my bad old days of beach baking every weekend, I would try to revive my tan during the week with a layer of Clinique bronzing gel all over my face. One day a co-worker asked me why I was tanner on Thursday than I was on Monday.

Nikki Avatar

Last month I went shopping and my makeup looked great, but then my cheek striped up the second I walked outside the store-basically the heat melted a gap into the foundation on my cheek. I fixed it as soon as I got in the car.

BonnieBBon Avatar

My Sister and I put together a big dinner and celebration for our Mom’s 60th birthday. Lots of pictures were taken of course. What I didn’t know until I started looking at the photos was my foundation had oxidized and turned straight orange. Orange! Now evvvvvverybody has a framed photo of my Mom and Sis smiling and happy and me beaming away with no clue yet that I’m ORANGE! Not minimally orange, fully orange. It’s a big ‘ol joke among the family and family friends unit.
Btw, it was a foundation by ybf. They sell it on hsn. HSN had sent it to me for review… my review wasn’t used ? I just can’t believe I wore a new foundation for a big event. Rookie move!! This was years ago but still… rookie move and those photos are still hanging on everybody’s walls ??‍♀️

Denise Avatar

I put my makeup on in the same order, every time. If I get interrupted, bad things happen! One Sunday morning on the way to church, I went to apply lipstick in the rear view mirror, only to discover I wasn’t wearing any mascara! I had finished my shadow and liner, before stopping to answer a phone call. Fortunately we were ahead of schedule, and there was an open Walgreens on the way (although husband did roll his eyes at me for making him stop). Ever since, I’ve kept mascara samples in my makeup bag!

Rachel R. Avatar

I went in for a tattoo without knowing my red lipstick had gotten all over my front teeth. The tattoo artist good-naturedly ribbed me about for several visits to come. LOL

In another, more recent red-lipstick related moment, I was hugging my brother goodbye. I was sitting and he leaned over. As we were parting, my lips rubbed up against his light gray T-shirt and left a streak. Thank goodness he wasn’t worried about it.

Silvia Avatar

I often forget foundation all together! I’ll put my Cera Vé moisturizer, spf and forget all about it! Later when I realize it I laugh to myself. Lol!
I’ll forget eyeliner many times too but never mascara.
Blush I need like I need air to breath that I won’t forget or some kind of lipstick, gloss some coloring is mostly appreciated on this ghost!

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