What was your most embarrassing makeup mishap? Share!
I have forgotten to apply mascara a few times, which would be fine if I was wearing hardly anything and not bold, bright eyeshadow!
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…most of the 90s was an embarrassing makeup mishap, hahaha.
Lol, I agree I used to wear dark brown eye liner as lip liner with lip balm, and super exaggerated arched eyebrows. Smh!
Lipstick on my teeth, to the point where it looked like I ate a marker. That’s what I get for napping with red lipstick on
Hmm, I had a red lipstick a long time ago (Lancome Color Fever, if anyone remembers!) that looked great but faded very unevenly, and I remember spending an entire evening at a party with the infamous red ring around my lips and nothing at the center, until I finally noticed it in the bathroom…
Haha, oh no! I had this happen to me with a deep, slightly vampy lipstick — when I was a bridesmaid in a wedding! THE HORROR.
There are actually professional photos floating around on Facebook of this wedding, with me smiling away in my horrible dark – ringed lips with pale center.
Sigh.
I ALWAYS FORGET MASCARA.
As one can imagine, after 43 years of doing my face, I’ve done some whammies: badly bleeding RED lipstick, and doing what Christine mentioned on a few (ok, more than a few) occasions, too. Buuut, then there was that fateful day when I was being impatient and my brows needed plucking, so I figured: “Well, my friends shave their stubble off, so why not?” Well, I was in a hurry! So I plugged in my electric shaver and started shaving the stubble and as the shaver went across, it took off my EYELASHES from my one eye!!!! Short, too. I cried like a baby. And at 17 years old, I had to look REALLY screwed up until they grew back. No falsies either. Utter humiliation.
LMAO! …I did something similar, except with a disposable shaver. I had some stray hairs at the end of my brow and got lazy. Decided to shave them off instead of plucking each one. Well, my hand slipped, and I accidentally shaved off HALF my brow !! And it took FOREVER to grow back. I had to buy a bunch of brow pencils and powders to draw the brow back in
I did the exact same thing in middle school! I was so embarrassed about my huge caveman eyebrows, I shaved off half of one by accident trying to get rid of the unibrow in the middle. But I didn’t wear makeup yet (didn’t even know about brow products) so I just wore my hair deeply parted to the side and hanging over one eye for a few months.
Glad I’m not the only one that did that! LOL You’re lucky yours grew back in a few months, mine took years to grow back !
At least you were both smart enough to use razors… I decided to pluck my brows one morning after work (I worked Graveyard shift at the time), and I was really tired, and somehow fell into a trance-like state as I was plucking. I kept going from one side to the other, to “even” them out, and the next thing I knew, I had like 10 hairs on each side… My boyfriend at the time stopped by later that day, earlier than expected, and the look on hos face was priceless, LOL! I figured he’d see it eventually, so I just answered the door without doing my brows. The worst part is, this was 20+ years ago, and my brows still haven’t recovered.
LOL!! OMG, I believe it. It took me about 5 years to grow mine back, but they didn’t grow back right until almost 10 years later. At one point, I was afraid they would never grow back.
When I met by BFF in 8th grade, she got teased for having no eyelashes. She had been curling hers, and her arm got jostled, pulling out all the lashes in one eye. So she pulled out the one on the other side. This was just before I met here. They did grow back, but it took a couple years to get back to normal length.
Forgetting to apply mascara, getting lipstick all over my teeth, applying too much blush, using a thick, oily, orangey foundation; not using eye primers (I didn’t know they existed), not owning any brushes, not cleaning my brushes, painting my eyebrows too dark, getting eyeshadow fallout all over my face without noticing, the classic “racoon eyes”, using a neon purple lipstick that looks horrible on me… the list goes on.
Thanks for picking my question 🙂 I had an upcoming lunch with a business client and wanted my lipstick to last. So I decided to try this new Liquid Lipstick for the first time (big mistake). It was the Maybelline Superstay 24 Liquid Lipstick. The color was an absolutely gorgeous red, and I felt like a million bucks. Anyways, I was at the lunch and having a great time. After dessert, I went to ladies room to touch up my makeup. I was completely horrified to see that most of the color had literally cracked off, and there were random patches of red dots stuck all over my lips!!! The client was too polite to say anything. I was so embarrassed, I wanted to disappear!! I had to scrub all the patches off my lips with paper towels and slink back to the table with bare lips. From that day on, I’ve been leery of liquid lipsticks. But all of these new releases are tempting me again….
Oooh off toned foundation that’s way darker than my neck! Too bright lipstick with bold eyes! And finally finding my eyebrows went thru a phase of experimenting with different eyebrow shapes & it was not good!!
Eyebrows are so hard! I don’t know a single person who’s never had an eyebrow-related embarrassment.
I’ve forgotten mascara a couple of times but I don’t think it was really noticeable since I wear glasses.
I think the most embarrassing was when foundation oxidized and was an orange oily mess at the end of the day. Now, for all-day makeup I’ll put on a TM or BB cream if anything and save the foundation for short-term wear, like a night out.
I went on a date wearing orange foundation five shades too dark (SA’s always seem to find it really hard to match me even when I go in bare faced).
Mostly skin-related mistakes… Overly powdery, overly oily, wrong foundation shade, that sort of thing.
I get embarassed when I run out of my better formulated, quality foundations and have to wear a cheap drugstore one. LOL. Sounds bag but I don’t particularly like the look of it, looks cheap and fake and never quite matches.
I’m the exact opposite! I find DS foundations to meld better with my skin-both in texture &color-while HE foundations tend to look like I literally painted something on my face.
lipstick on my teeth
I was living in my sister-in-law’s basement for a bit a million years ago and so obviously the lighting was pretty poor. It looked like I wasn’t wearing enough foundation, eyeshadow, blush… well, everything. I had come upstairs, went to the bathroom to check on my makeup (after I’ve had a few conversations with actual humans in the daylight) and proceeded to scream at how ridiculous I looked! My polite in-laws never said anything 🙂
And, you know, I’m sure I’ve had bright pink or red lipstick stains on my teeth while laughing like a hyena around people before. And I’m sure it won’t be the last time!
Not knowing how to wear foundation. I would put the foundation on and it would cover my eyebrows and eyelashes, so my entire face was one color because I didn’t wear eyeshadow, mascara, blush or lipstick/gloss etc. Someone in a restaurant pointed it out to me. I was so embarrassed. I still need and am looking for some sort of makeup lessons though.
Not using my mu mirror to apply and then scaring myself in a reflection of pure daylight.
I probably have many. but, the one that is standing out is when I tried to wear false lashes without practicing much first out. I’m not sure what I did because since they have sat. But, one kept popping up and poking the inside of my eye. I wound up working them off and thankfully I had brought makeup to touch up. I haven’t tried since again and I had bought those ( kinda expensive) Velour lashes before they were at Sephora. I had forgotten I had put them on because it was GNO and a few drinks had been involved. Luckily, it was just my girlfriends. So, it actually is still a laugh amongst us today! 😀
I can’t really think of one except maybe applying a lipstick that was brighter than I remembered it and sort of too bright for the situation (this just happened the other day – I made the “mistake” of applying TooFaced Melted Ruby before going for a walk with a friend; I thought I could just apply it “lightly” but by the time I found my lip brush to try to spread around the amount I’d dabbed on my lips, it was already too much and a bit too set to remove quickly and easily).
Bright blue eyeshadow, painted on freckles using my black eyeliner, and my curly hair in pigtails! No it wasn’t Halloween–I have no idea what I was thinking. In my defense, I was only 15 years old. But still!
IMHO bright blue eyeshadow gets a lot more flack than it rightfully deserves! Of course it’s not in everybody’s taste but I firmly believe in it, probably to my utter embarrassment sometime in the future but still…
Unblended creamy highlight under the brow bone – 2 streaks of pink under the browbone. Super awkward and embarrassing when somebody pointed it out to me…
I’m so glad I’m not alone! I’ve forgotten to apply mascara enough times that I had to buy a tube to keep in my purse!
I don’t think forgetting mascara is a mishap or embarrassing. Personally some days I just don’t want to wear mascara.I like my natural lashes.
Forgetting mascara while wearing bright eyeshadow has happened to me a lot too…thankfully no one has ever pointed it out but I notice it when I’m out and I get irritated lol
I work in the medical field, and some days I spend a long time wearing a mask. I tried a new mascara sample one day and didn’t realize how much it flaked and only realized after I’d been talking to a bunch of people that it had come off all over my under-eye. It looked like I had two black eyes. I still cringe when I think about it.
Once I left the house with a foundation that was straight up three shades lighter than what I was supposed to be wearing. Ghost Face Galore.
I used MAC PREP + PRIME Primer with a mineral foundxation and my foundation literally flaked off my chin in patches. O_O Thankfully, it was low light dance but I panicked when I saw myself in the mirror. lol
I applied red lipliner and then red lipstick — but in poor lighting. Got a few funny looks, then saw in a better lit mirror that I had not blended them properly at ALL. It was just two different colors of red awkwardly competing on my lips.
My biggest mistake was Disco Era glitter fall out. Sometimes I’d return home from an evening out covered in sparkles everywhere but where I had originally applied them! Just call me Tinkerbell! LOL. We didn’t have primers back then so there was really nothing to lock down all the fairy dust.
I dabbed foundation on my cheeks once and forgot to go back and blend it out. A couple hours later, I went to the bathroom at work and saw that I had a stripe of foundation on each cheek and no where else on my face.
Then there was the episode with the Absolutely NOT Transfer-Proof Red Lipstick. It smeared EVERYWHERE. It got on my teeth, on my chin, on my cheeks, ALL around my mouth…
LOL! I’ve also been in the same red lipstick situation! “How did THAT get on my forehead?!”
I repeatedly make mistakes with foundations. They’re almost always slightly too pink or slightly orange when I look at myself in sunlight. Still on the hunt for that perfect color match.
Have you tried Lancome? I always find a great match for my extremely neutral tone. Unfortunately, I haven’t found a formula I really like for my drier skin… In the DS range, Maybelline & Rimmel are 2 brands I’ve had luck with!
I had an appointment to get my college year book pic taken right after work. So while getting dolled up after work in the dimly lit bathroom , I accidently used Mac’s plum lip pencil instead of my dark brown brow pencil to fill in my brows. As I was about to leave I noticed a few people staring at me so I ran back to the bathroom and took a closer look at my face, luckily I caught my mistake in time.
Probably that icky white film that collects on the inside part of lips from really tacky lipgloss (ahem Lipglass). Or maybe way too much blush. lol. My bedroom has very poor lighting so I do sometimes leave the house in the morning, check a mirror, and find that I’m sporting a very… editorial style statement cheek. haha
When I swim with waterproof mascara and it doesn’t work!
Not a specific mishap probably but until last autumn I wore way too much foundation because my technique was lacking. I must have looked a bit funny…
OH. And I remember I bought a super dark matte red lipstick when I was a teen goth (about 14) and wore it every day to school (we don’t have dress codes or uniform in this country). That and a lot of powdery makeup that was like 5 shades too light for me! It was a bit much but I wish I remembered the brand (I’m thinking probably Helena Rubinstein??) and the shade of the lipstick bc I remember it being one of those really nice sort-of brown, sort-of wine reds and it suited my skintone even if the rest of my makeup didn’t. So half mishap half cherished memory I suppose?
Brow makeup coming off unevenly at the waterpark.
Forgetting mascara is a big one for me, my eye lashes are basically blonde and it looks really weird.
But the worst one was when I tried out a new Nars Duo that had a very shimmery shade that I over loaded on my inner corners and lower lash line (and, to be honest, it was in my early days of applying make-up so I didn’t really know what I was doing). There were pics and the flash made me look like a total freak as the shimmer was really reflective.
When I used to let sales associates choose my foundation color, they would always match it to my red/irritated spots (why would you choose a foundation the same shade as the imperfection you’re trying to cover up?!) I would always end up with something too dark and too pink, so definitely walking around looking like my face was sunburnt but the rest of my body was fine (for example, my Estee Lauder DW foundation shade is 1W1, but the SA used the little color scanner and got 3C1!!).
Also, applying my makeup in the bathroom (all the lightbulbs are really yellow) so it looks like nothing matches even when it does. I sit in front of the window and use natural light now instead.
I’ve pretty much always had good luck with DS foundations, but one day I decided to “upgrade” with something from a Department Store. Several people I knew wore MAC foundations, so I decided to start there. It had been over a decade since I tried MAC (lipstick & nail polish, but I hated them so much, I didn’t bother trying anything else), and was absolutely ignorant of the foundation numbering. One day, before work, I stopped by a MAC stopped by a MAC counter, and asked the SA to match me with a shade & formula. After a while, we settled on Studio Stick in NC30… She applied it, and it looked absolutely *flawless*! Needless to say, I went on my merry way to work without looking in a mirror. As soon as I got to work, I went upstairs to the very dimly lit restroom, and proceeded to apply some mascara, brows, and lipgloss (I was a bank teller at the time, so there was a strict dress code). After a couple of hours of facetime with customers and coworkers, I kept being asked if I was feeling okay, to which I replied I was fine. Then, during my break, I stepped outside, and when I looked in my pocket mirror, I saw what everyone else did… I was YELLOW!
Unfortunately, by the time I learned about returning makeup (it was something I never asked about, as I always suck it up when I make a poor purchasing choice-that’s what testers/samples are for!), the foundation was being phased out, and my shade-NC15-wasn’t available. I had explained to the SA that *every* foundation I had ever used had the word Ivory/Porcelain/Claire in the shade name, so I don’t know why she pulled out NC30 as a starting point. I really did love the formula, though!
LMAO!!
too much blush!
I don’t remember any single instances of noticeable mishaps, but I used to not have any idea how to correctly apply shadow to my extremely hooded eyes, thus making them look even more squinted. And I think a lot of us can relate to the middle school/junior high years of overplucked brows! Lol
Over plucking my eyebrows big time in the mid to late 90’s
As i can remember lipstick on my teeth, mismatching foundation and once i missed a spot while applying my foundation, it wasnt noticeable UNTIL WE TOOK A PHOTO WITH FLASH 🙂
Just wearing the wrong shades of foundation!
Definitely most embarrassing makeup mishap was getting makeup on a man’s black tuxedo (when I hugged him.)
I was curling my lashes, probably had some mascara on, our large dog jumped up, I turned my head and every lash came out! I wore lashes for a couple of months. They grew back 🙂
I feel your pain. Literally. An eyelash loss disaster is so unpleasant, and having to explain what happened is even more painful! I accidentally shaved my lashes off on one eye.
Oh no! That must have been just as upsetting! My one eye looked so strange for a while, and the fake lashes looked way too glam for work, lol.
After the midnight mass service on Christmas Eve, I lingered in the (candlelit) sanctuary to freshen my makeup before the reception in the parish hall. I must’ve talked to 500 people that night, and not one soul mentioned my ruby-red eyeliner and black lip liner 🙂 I got home and almost screamed when I saw myself in the mirror!
OMG LOL! They probably remembered that Christmas well
I’ve been known to wear that look on purpose…
Yikes! Classic!
Oh, lots! Most notably too pale concealer for under eye circles, I was guilty of that for years!
I was a 80s kid/90’s teen and most of what I knew came from Mom. She was (and still is) very pretty and fashionable and loved the trendy stuff, unfortunately that meant a bubble permed mullet, Dynasty business suits with ridiculously exaggerated shoulder pants. This extended to make up and I would watch her carefully apply razor sharp blush, super frosty hot pink lipstick, and about 10 different shades of blue eyeshadow up to her eyebrows. When I started wearing it (I was 11) I’d follow her example. Then grunge happened in high school and instead I’d accentuate my scowl with a dark brown wet n wild eyebrow pencil. Looked great with my flannel :X
Shoulder pads, not pants!
LOL! I remember those 1980s Dynasty days, with the football sized shoulder pads, permed hair, and face full of makeup -bold brows, bold lips, bold blush. More was more !
I forgot to blend my contour once. When I got to work and looked in the mirror I had brown streaks on my face.
When I was 14 I had my first boyfriend. This had to be in 2002 or so. The everlasting 12 hour wear lipstick was new. It had a clear Chapstick and the lipstick color. Well we had a make out session and the lipstick was such an odd texture that it would crack and peel off. It was horrible. Well during the heated moment he had to stop and start spitting these huge chunks of lipstick and crusty flakes. I just said I didn’t know where it came from. I also remember seeing the stupid commercials on tv where the lady would kiss a guy and drink soda with no fading. Yea messed my whole time out
Early 90’s “natural” makeup – matte brown EVERYTHING!! Brown on eyes, brown blush, brown lipstick. When I see pictures from then I definitely cringe. And oh boy, wasn’t that a great daytime look, in bright sun?? Now that I think of it, yeah, most of a decade there was kinda scary – from the mid 80’s to the mid 90’s. Along with the huge hair and big bangs? Ah, the memories! LOL!
A hot summer day with my friend at the drag strip and my make up peeled off……yeah not cute. I tried a new primer, Victoria’s Secret. Needless to say I never wore that primer again and complained to corporate since i couldn’t return it to the store since it was opened.
Once I was wearing a matte liquid lipstick and because it got so cold it curdled up on my lips and soaked into them partially.. :/ Still makes me cringe whenever I think about it. Just imagine..
not blending out my contour and being told i had a black line on my cheek and chin.. thank god i wasnt into the guy that told me, but it made me so aware that i had no clue what i was doing
I forgot to blend my contour…
I tried a new mascara on a rainy day when I went to get my driver’s license. Not sure why I didn’t check a mirror, though maybe I was naively expecting my spouse to notice that the stuff had all migrated to my under eye area. Of course I looked like a zombie in that license photo– couldn’t wait until the license expired so I could get a new one 😉
Forgetting mascara or crying with mascara on and looking like I’m in an Alice Cooper look-alike contest are the top two. I experienced something much worse once, though. It was while we were living in Arizona with the 100+ temperatures and had friends over for dinner. I rubbed at my jawline and my makeup rolled into little balls of powdery foundation. I went to the bathroom to see what was going on and tried adding more foundation to the area to blend it into the preexisting makeup. Nope, all of the preexisting makeup rolled up and fell into the sink. I had to redo all of my face makeup. =( That was before I started wearing foundation primers so I have no idea what caused it. I probably did something “extra special” since we were having guests over but I can’t remember what it was.
Full blown hot mess creased winged liner. My eyes are hooded, so when I either forget primer or use a certain liner, my winged liner will just be a giant creased mess. That’s why I have to use stuff like MAC Liquidlast liner that doesn’t move on me.
How funny this is today’s question, as I had the worst in recent memory today. I was getting ready this morning to take my son to the doctor, and my kids kept popping in and talking to me. I haven’t slept well the last two nights. So, I do some light contouring under my cheekbones, around my chin, and on my nose. Went to the appointment, went to the grocery store, got lunch, out all day in public. After lunch, I went to touch up my lipstick, only to see that I missed blending the contour around my chin. I had a taupe line going around it. OMG…so mortifying.
In the past, I’ve forgotten mascara (several times), once had one eye lined but not the other, and have had lipstick on my teeth. My piercing artist still teases me and checks me for lipstick on my teeth, a year after going in with Candy Yum-Yum on – and in – my mouth.
I’ve had a few – lipstick on my teeth, foundation the wrong colour and my attempts at wearing eye liner.
I try to use eye pencils under my lower lashes but I end up looking like a panda girl……
Christine, I do the same with forgetting mascara sometimes! The worst part is, the *more* makeup I tend to do on a given day, the more likely I will forget the mascara! I carry little travel size ones in my purse just for this reason. Other than my lipstick/gloss of the day, it’s the only makeup I carry around.
Too dark foundation, to the point that my derm was like, you’re make up is too heavy/dark, etc…He changed his tune when I told him that it was his office & his aesthetician that “custom” mixed it for me! (Then it was, oh, uh, why don’t we have that readjusted?)
And of course picking make up based on how “pretty” it is. 80’s teal shadow is *not* pretty. Frosty blue eyeliner isn’t either.
i was a teenager in the 80’s… need i say more?
Oh my!!
I think my worst experience was going to Sephora for my very first time, braving the Dallas traffic. I was wearing Smashbox Halo in Medium, which seemed appropriate since it was summer. Looked fine when I applied it at my brothers house, but OH MY GOODNESS when I got in Sephora and saw how yellow I looked, I never spent $450 so fast and got out of there!
Foundation and concealer too dark and orange. My skin tone is extremely pale so it took me a very long time to find products that work for me, and as a teen with rosacea and acne I wore my fair share of badly applied and dark concealer.
Applying tinted chapstick without a mirror. Bad idea, bad idea. It went so ever the line… and I have done that several times, saying, oh, it’s balm, I can get it right without a mirror… no, you can’t.
It’s always about the eyes: forgetting to blend shadows, forgetting liner or mascara. Not using waterproof mascara and it rains or I cry.
Sometimes the lips get me. Having chapped lips and half my lipstick flakes off–ugh. Lipstick on the teeth.
Oh yeah, before discovering UDPP, my shadow always faded and creased something terrible.
When I first started wearing makeup at 14 (this was ’88) I wore what was popular (cool pastels) and not what suited me (warm spice colors).
Going so long without trying eyeshadow primer. I have oily lids, so it should have been a no-brainer for me to invest in primer. Also, relying too much on foundations to provide coverage, resulting in too much being applied.
I was excited about a new bronzer I bought. I was convinced by the mirror in my bathroom that I looked like a bronzed goddess. But when I got out in the daylight and caught a look at myself, I looked like an opmpa loompa. Not only was it the wrong color, but I clearly was heavy handed in my application.
For some unknown reason, I decided that a very special occasion out of town (staying in a hotel for the weekend) was the PERFECT time to try a winged eyeliner for the first time. Of course it was the kind of waterproof gel liner that sets like concrete, and of course I’d forgotten to pack my eye makeup remover. So I went to this very special party with something that looked like a drunk batman symbol hovering over my lash line… it was bloody awful! LOL!
Oh… and I don’t recommend trying a new foundation when getting ready for a first date, either. I sure felt pretty heading out the door for the evening. But when it oxidized? All I can say is, oompa-loompa face is *not* alluring. Nor is it a good look for enticing someone into a second date.
The summer I was about 12 or 13, I went to the swim club with some girlfriends. In my pool bag, I had packed 2 Cover Girl lipsticks. One was clear, the other was an opaque bubble gum pink (Peek-A-Boo Pink, I think!). After being in the water and the sun for most of the day, my lips felt parched and I thought I had grabbed the clear lipstick to slick all over my lips, not paying attention to the shape of my mouth (and certainly not using a mirror) because it was the clear lipstick (or so I thought!) In reality, it was the bubble gum lipstick I had painted all over my face like a clown. Fortunately I was with friends so it was caught pretty quickly – but it was an ugly mistake for those 2 minutes I had sloppy neon pink clown lips poolside!
White eyeshadow as under brow highlighter, frosty pink lipstick (think snob, by MAC), concealer that was wayyy lighter than what it should be… Like, I am dark, so these things look especially unflattering! And the worst part is that I actually thought I looked cute lol :/