Whether you’re a bare-faced beauty, a makeup lover since you could reach your mother’s vanity, or a seasoned MUA, we can all agree on one thing: When you feel good, you look good. Bad days happen, but not everyone’s prepared to handle a full-blown beauty emergency.
Despite our treasure trove of how-to guides helping you recreate muse-worthy makeup looks in time for fall, or helping you figure out the right skincare products you need based on skin type, we all will have a skin, hair, or makeup mayday on a day that you really couldn’t afford to (like right before a presentation or a date).
Leave those days in the past, because IPSY has your back with foolproof fixes for 10 common beauty blunders (you’re welcome for saving you from entering your hermit-girl era!). After all, it’s not your fault for thinking you could exercise a little restraint when plucking out those stray brow hairs, or swore you’d learned from your last bang-butchering job. Scroll on for some major beauty problem-solving, starting with…
1. Overplucked Eyebrows
It started out innocently enough. Just gonna clean up the newly sprouted brow hairs and leave the rest untouched, you tell yourself. Ten minutes later, you step back from the mirror and you’re staring at two very sparse lines where your arches used to be. You’re probably thinking, ‘I’ve just over-plucked myself,’ and resigning yourself to waiting for your brows to grow back the way one watches paint dry…until you remember that IPSY’s got some brow-building beauty tips for your big brow emergency.
The Solution: Fake It ‘Til You Make It
In case you’re not a fan of the ’90s pencil-thin eyebrow revival that’s trending right now, your best bet is a good, old fashioned eyebrow pencil to fake fuller-looking arches. We recommend YC COLLECTION Oh, My Eyebrows! for its ultra-thin, retractable tip that makes filling in, building up, and defining your eyebrows an effortless endeavor. Just use short, feather-light strokes to fill in the overplucked areas and gently brush them out with the spoolie end to blend out any harsh-looking lines. We love how simple it is to create the most natural-looking finish with this thing, plus the pigments last all day.
2. Smudged Waterproof Eye Makeup
Have you ever forgotten to let your mascara or liquid liner fully dry before accidentally smearing it? No big deal, right? Try that with a water-resistant mascara and liner and you’ll see how futile a Q-tip and water is. If you’re unlucky enough, you might cause more smearing to occur (as well as some major rubbing and tugging around your delicate eye area)!
The Solution: Use a Gentle Solution
Before you remove all your waterproof mascaras and start from scratch, try this first: Take a tiny little dab of your moisturizer (preferably unscented) onto your cotton swab to clean up the smear. Be cautious and never get the cream in your eyes, or else you’ll really be crying. We recommend the TOYFACTORY Oatbae Hyaluronic Oil Makeup Remover to get rid of any smudges, streaks, or unrelenting makeup mistakes in a jiffy. It’s gentle, hydrating, and nourishing on skin, too.
3. Acid Burn
A great chemical peel, whether done at home or at your dermatologist’s office, can be transformative. Depending on the strength of the peel and the acid used, your skin can go from congested, rough, unevenly toned, and dull to softer, smoother, clearer, and more radiant after just one treatment. Unfortunately, the harsh nature of chemical peels or not choosing the right peel for your skin type can often result in a rough recovery. The main side effect of a chem peel gone wrong? Acid burns and inflamed skin that is painful to the touch.
The Solution: Soothe the Sting
If you’re seeing raw, angry, and damaged skin immediately after your chemical peel, it’s time to go into recovery mode. It might be days, even weeks, before your skin looks normal. In the meantime, we recommend using a gentle hydrator that soothes your stressed-out skin, like the HEY HONEY 911 Pro Gel. It’s packed with heroic, skin-healing ingredients like concentrated propolis to offer rapid relief from redness, irritation, acne, bug bites, and minor burns.
4. Botched Bangs
There’s one thing the girlies will always stay delulu about…our DIY bang-trimming skills. It doesn’t matter if we butchered our bangs into a cringe fringe last time because this time is different! That is, until you assess the results in the mirror and determine that it’s probably time to go into hibernation.
The Solution: Hold It With Some Mousse
In case you can’t bring yourself to rock your choppy baby bangs with confidence, we’d put your bangs on hold—literally. Just a bit of styling gel or hair mousse can go a long way to keep your bangs away from your face where they’re front and center. We recommend raking a bit of BUMBLE AND BUMBLE Surf Foam Spray Blow Dry Mousse through your damp bangs and sweeping them up and out so that they’re framing your face. Blow dry to keep the style locked in all night long.
5. Damaged, Flaky Skin Barrier
If you’ve ever woken up to dry, itchy, and irritated skin that came out of nowhere, chances are your skin barrier is damaged. This can happen when you go heavy on the active ingredients, have an allergic reaction to a certain ingredient, or just use too many products at once. Once you throw the balance off in your skin’s bacterial ecosystem, simply slathering on your usual moisturizer won’t do much to help your skin from looking like it’s been through 100 mph winds in the arctic.
The Solution: A Hero Hydrator
When your skin is feeling sensitized and compromised, your go-to moisturizer might not help. Look for something with hydration-boosting hyaluronic acid, microbiome-balancing probiotics, and barrier-supporting peptides like the TULA SKINCARE 24-7 Ultra Hydration Triple-Hydra™ Complex Day & Night Serum. It’s clinically proven to lock in moisture for up to 24 hours, and the soothing gel formula drenches skin in multiple levels of hydration.
6. Breakouts
Unless you’ve been blessed with naturally clear skin, chances are you deal with the occasional breakout or two a month. No biggie, right? They don’t have to be, but getting a cluster of pesky pimples right before a planned social event isn’t ideal, either. Depending on what is causing your skin to freak out, you can get your blemishes under control and stop new pimples from popping up..
The Solution: Cleanse, Calm, and Conceal
Start with a gentle exfoliating gel cleanser that helps purify pores without disrupting or irritating your skin, like INNBEAUTY PROJECT’s Keep it Clean Hydrating Gel Cleanser. Massage it gently over your face, concentrating on acne-affected areas, for up to one minute. Then go in with a soothing moisturizer like the TOVEGAN Green Glow-Up Cream, which is packed with anti-inflammatory and detoxifying properties that target acne. To conceal, we recommend the THREAD BEAUTY Face It Multi-Use Complexion Stick for its full coverage and staying power.
7. Heavy Under-Eye Baggage
Skipping out on those precious eight hours of sleep can do a number on your face the next day, but nowhere is it more evident than under your eyes. Dark circles are an instant giveaway that you’ve had a long and restless night, but you can check that luggage instead of dragging it around.
The Solution: Fake Awake
For heavy lifting of dark under-eye bags, we recommend an eye cream like FORMULA Z Z - Stem® Eye Complex to reduce puffiness, tighten, and brighten your dark circles in an instant. Formulated with energizing caffeine, cooling cucumber, and a triple-threat combo of the brand’s proprietary Z-Stem® Cells, Hyaluronic Z Technology®, and Diamond Skin Extract complexes, this cream fakes a full night’s sleep for you. Top it off with the LYS BEAUTY Triple Fix Full Coverage Brightening Concealer for eyes that look well-rested and radiant.
8. Wrinkles
Wrinkles can happen overnight simply by getting up on the wrong side of bed. Instead of worrying about them and giving yourself even more fine lines, you can tackle them with their worst enemy: relaxation.
The Solution: Keep Calm
Your best defense against visible fine lines and wrinkles doesn’t have to involve Botox (unless you want it to!). Opt for a peptide-rich cream to plump out those creases, such as the BEAUTYSTAT Peptide Wrinkle Relaxing Moisturizer, which targets several signs of aging like loss of volume, dullness, and dehydration. Two neuropeptides work together to help tighten and lift your skin instantly and over time.
9. Fried and Frizzy Follicles
Nothing puts a damper on a flawless face of makeup faster than a bad hair day. If your strands feel straw-like, brittle, and totally untameable, that might be a sign of heat damage from using styling tools without any UV-protecting products. Over-processed strands and coloring treatments can also leave hair porous, parched, and full of split ends.
The Solution: Build a Bond with Your Hair
Get your hair strong and healthy again with a bonding treatment. We recommend VERB Hair Bonding Mask to resuscitate your dull, damaged strands. It works on all hair types to help relink broken or weakened protein bonds with an amino-bond complex, while nourishing mafura butter and manketti seed oil help to smooth split ends and protect it from further damage. If you plan on using any hot styling tools, we recommend BUMBLE AND BUMBLE Heat Shield Thermal Protection Hair Mist, which defends your strands against up to 450 degrees of heat, smooths out frizz, and repairs damaged hair.
10. Rough, Chapped Lips
Keeping your lips soft, smooth, and healthy can be a challenge, especially as fall rolls in. With cold temps and central heating, it’s even harder to keep your lips hydrated. But don’t worry—dry, flaky lips are not on the menu. We’re spilling the tea on what will keep your pout looking plump and pretty.
The Solution: Buff + Balm Method
If you want smooth, sumptuous lips that are free of cracks and flakes, look no further than the BUXOM Power-Full Lip Scrub. It’s the lazy-girl’s answer to baby-soft lips without having to get your hands messy. Just twist up the tube and swipe over your lips until you’ve achieved peak petal-softness. It’s packed with antioxidants and enzymes that nourish, replenish, and hydrate your lips while sugar granules buff away any roughness. The results? The most luscious and supple lips ever. Top it off with some Sorbae Hyaluronic Lip Butter by DEW OF THE GOD for all-day moisture with a hint of strawberry flavor.