The Concealer Every Woman of Color Needs in Her Makeup Bag

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Concealer — when applied accurately and used sparingly — can hide dark spots, cover under-eye circles and minimize the appearance of reddish pimples that randomly pop up. That is, of course, if you’ve got the right concealer for your skin tone.

Finding concealer that matches my chestnut complexion has been a long and frustrating journey. Often, the shade leaves behind a grayish cast on my face or the formula is just too thick. But a glimmer of hope came with the new expanded shades in Make Up For Ever’s Ultra HD Concealer line.

The beauty brand’s complexion-perfecting concealers are cherished by makeup lovers for their fine pigments and 3D gel formulation, which helps to reflect light, blur blemishes and smooth fine lines. Skin-nourishing ingredients, such as green algae and Asian berry extract, also work to correct dark spots while masking imperfections.

Celebrity makeup artist and head of the Make Up For Ever Academy in New York City Jackie Gomez admits that it took some time to expand the range of concealers to include options that are perfect for darker skin tones. “When you put darker pigment into an already existing formula, it’s always going to change it,” she says. “Just any dark pigment — it can be concealer or a lipstick or liquid liner. So it took us a little bit in order to keep the same formula as the existing ones … and now we have the great extended colors.”

Typically, women with richer and deeper complexions like mine tend to be darker on the outer perimeters of their face and lighter toward the center. This is why Gomez swears by using two different tones of concealers. “I recommend that for anyone because I think you look more beautiful, especially in pictures,” she says. My true match in the Ultra HD Concealer is Y51 Coffee and the “brightener” that works best for me is R50 Orange.

Gomez’s application technique, which isn’t the typical triangle method you see all over Instagram, consists of mixing the brightening concealer with my natural shade and then applying with a large, flat brush straight down underneath my eyes. She feathered out the edges toward my nose using a sponge to achieve the most color impact in the center.

What I appreciate most about the Ultra HD Concealer is that it feels weightless, it doesn’t crease into wrinkles and it left my skin with a dewy, “I-woke-up-like-this” finish. While Gomez prepped my shiny T-zone area with the Step 1 Skin Equalizer Mattifying Primer, the concealer stayed in place for an entire workday. It takes only a small amount to make the biggest difference in appearing more refreshed, so use this medium-coverage concealer with caution. It’s the closest thing you’d get to looking like the beauty filter in Snapchat.

Make Up For Ever Ultra HD Concealer ($27) is available on MakeUpForEver.com, Sephora.com, and Make Up For Ever Boutiques and Sephora stores.

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