There’s no doubt about it: putting on makeup is hard. Sometimes I reminisce on the good old days, where a great makeup day consisted of some concealer, mascara and a bit of lip gloss. Long before the days of a contouring, highlighting, strobing, blending and “Instagram brows.” I miss the days where I naively believed that my nose looked good without a contour, and my lips were plenty plump without a Kylie Lip Kit.
No matter how hard we want to go back to the days where makeup could be done on the bus to school, we now live in a world where you’re nothing without using ten different makeup brushes, and we can’t do anything about it. Regardless of how much we whine and complain, we’re now all supposed to wake up an hour earlier and spend $400 more at Sephora than we used to… all in the name of beauty.
But, what if you don’t want to? What if you still haven’t fully grasped the concept, or purpose, of highlighting? How can you live in a world of Kardashian lookalikes in the Instagram-makeup world?
1. Start working out.
If you’re one of those girls who believes that she “shines” instead of sweats, then I’m sure after an hour long cardio session (leave that up to your own interpretation), you’ll look like you’ve bathed in highlight.
2. Be the perfect human specimen.
If you’re born with a chiseled jaw, thin nose and model-like cheekbones, there’ll be no need to contour. Ditto goes for your body. Just simply keeping your boobs perky forever will eliminate the need to ever fake them with contouring.
3. Forget makeup, and just skip straight to Facetune.
Who cares how ugly you look in front of the people who are seeing you in real life. It’s your social media presence that matters anyway. Taking a good Instagram photo was the only reason you cared about makeup in the first place, so just take out the step of actually putting it on.
4. Constantly buy new products.
That way, any time you’ve accidentally over-lined your lips, not blended out your eyeshadow or your foundation looks cakey, you can just blame it on a “new product that’s not working.” You’ll never need to learn any actual makeup skills if you always have an excuse!
5. Sob to your friends who actually are good at makeup.
Whine to them about how important your upcoming date is, or how you’re sick of getting under a hundred likes on your Instagram selfies. As you wallow in self pity, ensure that you flatter your friend with comments like “You should start your own Youtube channel!” or “How can I be as pretty as you?” until they give up and do your makeup for you.
6. Alternatively, if all of your friends are as useless as you are, repeat the steps above with the girls at your local Sephora or beauty counter.
Hell, pull out the big guns, tell the workers at the nearest place that makeup is sold that you’re looking for a palette to create the perfect smokey eye “because you think your boyfriend may propose tonight.” Drop enough hints until they offer to help you out. No one needs to know that the only place that you’re taking that smokey eye is the bar, where you’re sure you won’t be finding a boyfriend.
7. Talk up your own makeup game.
The more often you tell people that you’re good at makeup, the less likely they are to question any of your questionable looks. It’s totally a new trend to overfill your brows and do your eyeliner in the exact same, circular way that you did in middle school, and you totally know what you’re doing.
8. Get really good at one over-the-top trend.
If you’re always sporting false lashes that reach all the way up to your eyebrows, or red lips that are so bright it gives everyone around flashbacks to their great-aunt who always wore too much lipstick, it’ll be so distracting that no one will notice that you didn’t contour.
9. Have more sex.
A lot more. While it might ruin your hair, you’ll constantly have that post-sex glow, thats better than any store bought bronzer.
10. Constantly act like you’re so busy.
No one is going to comment on your lack of lipstick if you tell them about the all-nighter you pulled on that super-important-totally-not-made-up project. Under-eye bags are only acceptable for the world to see if you tell every person that you run into that you didn’t sleep the night before, and for a very important reason (note: your one night stand isn’t that important)..