In between standard product reviews and musings about beauty, I want to regularly incorporate general face/skin routines I have for various situations.  Hopefully in the future there will be times when I’ll get to figure out what the hell is on your face, too!

Ahh, foundation. Where would we be without it?  It is an incredible life saver for anyone without perfect skin, which is most of us.  I would bet that if you use makeup at all, you’ve dabbled with – and on – foundation at some point.  The huge variety of foundations that exist now make it more accessible and tempting for even the most natural of us.  You can get anywhere from light to heavy coverage, oil-free, hypoallergenic; you can get foundation in liquid, powder, or cream; foundations for as many skin shades as possible are becoming more and more available.  Even if your skin is 95% of the way there, a light, borderline-sheer foundation can take your skin straight to super model territory.

On the other hand, if your skin feels more and more like it was created at the center of Poopville, in the state of Crap Face, USA, a heavier foundation helps get you back to feeling like maybe – just maybe – people are seeing your actual face as opposed to huge, red pimples, a birthmark you hate, or general unevenness or discoloration.

I’m a medium-foundation girl (I’m like Seinfeld; I almost always break even, with gambling, the spread of my blemishes, and foundation coverage), with acne-prone skin.  Since I was 15, I wore foundation of various types every day.  Every.  Single.  Day.  It didn’t matter if I was most likely not going to leave my house; what if I did?!  Now, while as the years went on it became less and less time consuming (and formulas became way easier to blend), but I started to notice how much I was dragging my feet every morning putting it on, especially on the weekends. I felt my resolve weakening.  But, I was so in the habit, and so incredibly used to how my face looked with it (and so utterly unused to how my face looked without it), I could barely conceive of not doing so.

The reason it seemed so bizarre was partly because I assumed that, without foundation, I would have to have no makeup on at all.  My skin was dull; I had huge dark circles.  I assumed bare skin with an eyeliner would look bizarre on me.  But, once I got into skin care, I figured out how to sort of walk that line between foundation-free and Glam Octopus (I’m still figuring out my alter ego’s name, sorry).  In addition, it was because of my acne that I wanted even more so to give my skin a break and help it get as healthy as possible – though I was always careful to use good products that don’t clog pores, I figured avoiding putting more stuff than necessary on your face could only help.

I parsed down the process of going Foundation Free into a few steps of consideration.  But remember: Wear whatever the fuck you want. Who cares? If you want to wear foundation every damn day, to bed, to a water park, whatever, do it.  I stopped wearing foundation as often because I was exhausted of doing it every day, and it was getting expensive.  But also – if you have this paranoia, as I did, that echoes your teenage years of looking awful and feeling awful and assuming everyone around you thinks you’re f-f-f-fugly: This is not too crazy of a plan to carry out in order to get your head right about those bummer feelings.  Now that I spend 9 out of 10 days not wearing foundation, I luuurrrrvveee using it when I do.  I’m all, “Look at that lil’ hottie!” in the mirror and then when I take it off I’m all, “BUAHAHAHAHAHA I am halfway to crone!”  Both sides of me are perfect, quite frankly.

So, without further ado, here’s a guide to Curing Your Foundation Addiction:

1.) Figure out what it is you’re trying to cover with foundation.
As I said, my main issue with my skin was acne, but I also (as a result of the acne) have a lot of skin unevenness, dark circles, and general redness.  I’ll concede that foundation is probably the easiest, most natural-looking way to cover up acne if you’re suffering a flare-up, because it makes your skin all one color (duh), and because acne is actually raised and creates a texture difference, it’s particularly hard to hide.

That said, if you’re like me, the flare-ups come and go, and I try more often to take advantage of as much time as possible to let my skin breathe and better absorb any medications I’m on to help the acne.

2.) Find skin care products – not makeup – that effectively deal with this issue.
I was so used to finding the perfect concealer to cover my dark circles, or the best for old acne red marks, that I’d literally  forget – or not have budgeted for – stuff that would actually help solve the problem long-term from the inside out.  It may sound like a big duh –

– but it was just a 15-year habit I was in, so it is what it is.  And, again, skin care is sort of an investment; the best stuff is a bit pricey, and I didn’t want to waste money on stuff that didn’t really work well.  The idea of another set of trial and error when I already spent years and lots of money finding great foundations was a bit annoying.

So, what did I find out does work?  For the purposes of this blog, I’m going to focus on what I use every day I’m not going to wear foundation, centered around solving redness, dark circles, and acne.  If I don’t talk a whole lot about something, that means I’ll probably feature it in a Test It Out! column at a future date.  For reference, here I am before I do squat to my face, hence the towel on my hand (it symbolizes getting ready, get it?  I’m basically Darren Aronofsky when it comes to visually cueing the audience).

For Acne (My Routine, Steps 1 – 3):
I deal with standard acne stuff first thing out of the shower, swiping my face with a Stridex pad.  These aren’t much of a secret in the acne world – they’re magic.  Salicylic acid-based, alcohol-free, and these ones have the gentleness of aloe added.  I find the aloe also helps with redness.  I like to let to put it and my eye cream (described below) on and allow them to dry/absorb as I brush my teeth.  Multitasking!  (All photos are post-application.)

Next, I smear on Sunday Riley’s Martian Mattifying Melting Water-Gel Toner.  It’s thin, melts right in, and aside from also containing salicylic acid, it helps phenomenally with redness.

Last (in terms of acne stuff) comes a good ol’ basic benzoyl peroxide gel.  Yep, this is Target brand and it is AWESOME.

It should be noted, though of course I realize this is may be obvious, that anything and everything used for your Foundation Free look should absorb really well.  All of the things I mention today are great at that.  It’s bad enough feeling weird about how your skin looks, so if you end up using something that leaves a white, dry residue (like a lot of acne meds) or actually adds to redness (like something with alcohol), that’s going to trick you into thinking that this is all impossible and why am I doing this and WHERE THE HELL IS MY FENTY FOUNDATION (please someone send me Fenty foundation, I mean, NO, I’m breaking up with foundation but seriously please send it to me).

For Redness and Tone (Steps 4 – 5)
As you could tell from above, a lot of things that help with acne can help with redness.  Mainly, just avoid using alcohol on your face, and start this whole process with a cooling face wash – or at least an extremely non-irritating one.  My preference is CeraVe hydrating cleanser, some people swear by Cetaphil.  You don’t want that stiff, soapy feel after you rinse your face.  That’s the main thing to be after.  And, again though this is obvious: Don’t use super hot water or rub your face dry with a towel.  Pat, pat, pat!  Like the regal evil step mother on a 70s soap opera!

One of the things I use for tone is Kiehl’s Daily Reviving Concentrate.

It just makes my skin look less blah.  I pat it on (pat!  pat!) and then let it absorb for a few minutes while I do other getting-ready things so that there isn’t any residue when I slap the next thing on my face.  This shit is expensive, but look for oils that have antioxidants.  Shea Moisture is a brand available at Target, and their oils are about $15/bottle.  ALL oils (including the Kiehl’s) last for-friggin-ever because you only need 1 – 3 drops to cover your face.  Ooh, AND – if you’re afraid you’ll hate an oil, even an inexpensive one, get all your friends together, each pick one, and if you hate them you can trade in case another one does it for you!  Face oil party!

Sorry, I’m off track, day dreaming about my inevitable oil party.

Anyway, after I let that do its thing for a minute, I use my all-time favorite moisturizer, L’Oréal Hydra Genius Liquid Moisturizer.  Incredible, gel-like texture that absorbs quickly, with a bit of a cooling effect.  Also, I luurrrvve the smell.

Since we’re thinking long-term, never forget a sunscreen!  I use Kiehl’s Super Fluid most days, because it leaves a really nice finish as well as no white residue, which would make me look ghostly. Again, look for sunscreens that have things that are good for your skin in them, too – whether they’re moisturizing, brightening, whatever, so it’s not just a one-note (and a lot of moisturizers include sunscreen, so obviously skip this if yours does).

So there it is!  All of the above help with redness and tone.  Ta-da!

Let’s get back to the core goal here: Ridding ourselves of our Foundation Addictions (If!  We!  Wish!).  We’ve talked about figuring out what we’re covering, as well as how to alleviate the issue through skin care, but hey – just because you want a break from foundation doesn’t mean that you have to give up all makeup entirely.  In fact, the rise of color correction has left us quite a few products that can be used alone- not just under foundation – to create a smoother skin appearance.  So on to Step #3 . . .

#3) What do you want to pop?  Concentrate the rest of your makeup on that.
Your skin is glowing, you’ve spent two hours concocting the perfect face mask from the bark of a birch tree and the heart of wealthy witch (don’t do this), and it’s basically as good as it’s going to get without foundation, buuuuttt . . . You’re still not super thrilled with your appearance.  I definitely felt pretty blah without a stitch of makeup on; it just wasn’t my style.  I’m a big fan of my eyes, so I decided to play around with makeup I already had to see what I could do to create an extremely simple eye routine to go with my foundation-free face.  That way, attention is drawn straight to my eyes instead of my skin.  (Lips and cheekbones are also easy to make pop if those are your fave parts of yourself.  Focus on cool, light lip tones and add a very subtle, barely-there streak of highlight to cheekbones.)

To do brighten and call attention to my eyes, I use Benefit Lemon Aid Eye Primer on my lids.  It takes away any darkness on the lid, but sadly as I went to add the link it, erm . . . doesn’t exist any more and they stopped making it.  Poop.  Well.  It was good!  RIP.

Because this stuff is creamy, it can crease easily on its own, so I swipe a bit of neutral/invisible eye shadow on top (or one with a bit of a shimmer added if I’m feeling fancy).

For the under eye, I hope you didn’t forget about my very first product review, Alba Botanica Fast Fix for Under Eye Circles, hellooo!!  Here’s a pic of the “after” from that in case you don’t remember or you just got here:

I got lucky that the tone of this matched my skin.  Now that the Benefit Lemon Aid is no longer being made, I’ll probably just dab this on my lid as well.  The key to using a concealer without any foundation is to make sure it’s relatively thin.  While of course concealers are going to be a bit thicker (because the whole point is to, duh, conceal), it looks sort of weird to have these perfect swaths of color on a face that is otherwise clean.  Instead of concealer, consider getting a light-coverage foundation in your tone and patting it in any trouble spots; it’ll blend in better on a blank canvas and won’t be as noticeable.  The point isn’t to get rid of imperfections completely, just to make them less noticeable/faded, and especially to pump up stuff you want people to notice.

I typically choose a primer (most are fine enough, though I’d like to get to a blog about my faves) to handle any extra redness and hopefully eliminate oil and giving a nice, more even finish to my skin.

Moving on, I can’t live without black eyeliner, I really can’t, but I knew that too much would look sort of aggressive on me without a smooth foundation to soften the rest of my face.  Not only that, but if it smudged it wouldn’t look like a cool rock star chick but just like I’d recently run into some problems.  So, I bought an eyeliner that’s made for the waterline (Kiko Milano), and using a very tiny eyeliner brush (from Mac), I drew a thin, barely-there line along the top waterline.

Make sure if you want to do this that it’s an eyeliner specifically for your waterline!  Yikes!  Not all liners are considered equal – don’t put shit on your waterline unless it says to use it for that.

Finish off with a coat of mascara!  Just the inexpensive shit, I’m not using the good stuff for a day at the grocery store.  Also, this Cover Girl LashBlast Fusion mascara (in brown) does not smudge.  I love it.  Teeny tiny bristles with juuuussst enough to give your lashes a bit of highlight without looking too “done.”

Sometimes I’ll add a bit of lip gloss at the end.

This sounds like a lot!  It does!  It is!  But again, remember the steps:

1. Figure out what you’re trying to cover (redness, discoloration, dark circles).

2. Do as much as you can to solve the problem long-term with skin care products (there are expensive AND low-cost options, always).

3. Use some makeup, especially in neutral tones and thin, barely-there textures to spruce up problem areas and highlight things you want people to focus on.

That being said, here’s that before one more time . . .

Aaaannd, here’s the Foundation Free after!  (Yes, I put my hair down for increased dramatic effect, I’m not dumb).

My skin is not great!  I’m sure the fancy light I use for these shots is also helping.  And I have to be honest: Many of the improvements will fade faster than a layer of foundation.  If you do all of this, and then go out in the sun for four hours and sweat, you WILL get red-faced as usual.

Speaking of going out in the sun, my last bit of advice: Take a shit-ton of selfies without foundation.  Get used to your face without it.  The more you see yourself without it, the more you’ll get used to it and like it.  The hardest habit to break in this whole thing is mental – being convinced you look WAY worse than you actually do.  Start out messing around at home, then increase your time out and about until one day you’re at the symphony with nothing but a face primer and a diamond stuck to the corner of your eye (is that what people wear to the symphony?).

There’s only so much anyone can do. But if you’re looking to break your foundation addiction and give your skin a break, hopefully some or all of these tips will put you in the right direction.