Total beauty for your body and face

Picture this: You arrive at a restaurant to meet your best friend for brunch and as you lean in for a hug, you spot a crusted, muddy-looking blotch of concealer on her cheek. As she starts filling you in on her latest news all you're thinking is: Her concealer is doing nothing but making that zit look worse -- how do I tell her?

That's the thing about concealer. We do everything we can to use it to camouflage our flaws yet all too often, we end up accentuating them. And that's why, despite the fact that breaking down the details of how to apply concealer correctly sounds like the most boring makeup topic ever, it’s an important skill to hone.

Skip ahead to see how to apply concealer like a pro.

And while applying concealer properly may not be rocket science, it's not necessarily an intuitive process either. In fact, celebrity makeup artist Mario Dedivanovic (the guy responsible for making Kim Kardashian's complexion look flawless, even when it's not), says the most common mistake he sees women make with concealer is the most basic: We don't match it to our skin tone.

"When the concealer is too dark, setting it with powder will only make it darker, which makes the spot you're trying to cover look like a muddy patch of skin," Dedivanovic says.

But he also maintains that's not where the big fail ends. When we set the concealer with powder, we're using the wrong shade of powder. "You have to use a powder that's a shade lighter than your skin tone, because when dry powder touches wet concealer, it'll get darker." Who knew? Another life-changing tip from Dedivanovic: Apply your loose powder with a velour puff brush; using a natural bristle brush can leave streaks on your skin.

Getting the distinct sense that Dedivanovic knows a thing or two about faking flawless skin? Good. Because with his tips, your odds of never being that girl with the awkward concealer blob on her face are vastly im

How to conceal under-eye bags

You need: liquid concealer with lifting ingredients + latex sponge + loose powder

How to apply: To counteract the yellow, bluish hues under the eyes, Dedivanovic says to use a peach-based concealer. A lot of concealers have a yellow-base, which would only make the area look more dull and sallow. "The peach brings warmth to the area," he says.

And since the eye area is susceptible to fine lines, make sure the concealer has a lifting ingredient like vitamin A to prevent the concealer from settling into the creases. Dedivanovic loves DiorSkin Sculpt Smoothing Lifting Concealer, $35.

Finish by running a sponge under water, squeeze the water out, dip into loose powder, then dab over the area to set the concealer. Dedivanovic recommends the Beauty Blender, $26, which he calls "the greatest thing to happen to makeup in many years." 

How to conceal scars or dark spots

You need: cream pot + lifting concealer + concealer brush + latex sponge+ loose powder

How to apply: To completely erase the dark pigment, you need the heavy coverage of a cream concealer, says Dedivanovic. "Cream concealers have a thicker texture with less oil than liquid, so they last longer." He recommends applying the concealer with a brush just where the darkness is. (Try Laura Mercier Secret Camouflage, $30, and Laura Mercier Secret Camouflage Brush, $26.) Then, apply a dab of lifting concealer, which will provide a highlight. Finish with a damp sponge and loose powder to blend it all together.

How to conceal redness around the nose

You need: cream concealer + latex sponge+ loose powder

How to apply: Since the area around your nose gets oily quickly, Dedivanovic recommends using an oil-free cream concealer, which "will provide heavier coverage. As you get oily during the day, concealer darkens so you want to use a concealer that has a dry consistency," he says. We recommend Bobbi Brown Creamy Concealer, $23.

Use your ring finger to pat and blend the concealer into the crease around the nose. Then take your damp makeup sponge, dip in loose powder, and blend. Try Physician's Formula Mineral Wear Talc-Free Airbrushing Loose Powder SPF 30, $13.95 Dedivanovic says this is important, because "a lot of times the foundation and concealer are two different products with different finishes, so you have to blend the two together." 

Secrets Tanning Salons Don't Want You to Know 

If you've ever set foot in a tanning bed salon, you've heard the hard sell. They push "tan accelerators" costing up to $90 a pop, a "package" of tans so your "glow doesn't go," and the promise that tanning beds are a "smarter" choice than baking out at the beach.

 And apparently, you don't have to be a dummy to be sold. Nearly 30 million Americans a year tan indoors, allowing the industry to pull in a whopping five billion dollars per annum in revenue, according to The Skin Cancer Foundation. That's a lot of willing costumers allowing a business to knowingly, and quite happily, damage their skin.

So what is this, an alternate universe? What happened to the idea that the beauty industry was one that promoted youth and health? Spending time in a tanning bed practically guarantees you'll eventually deal with skin problems like photo damage, brown spots, fine lines, and wrinkles. Oh and hey, perhaps you've heard about this thing called melanoma, another not-so-lovely side effect of your tanning habit. Yeah, it's a deadly skin cancer that can spread throughout your entire body and kill you. Dead.

So why do Americans continue to subject themselves to the wrath of tanning beds and what are the secrets these salons are keeping from us in order to keep business booming? Read on. 

Tanning indoors is more dangerous than tanning outdoors

One of the most common spiels you'll hear at the tanning salon is that if you're going to tan, it's "smarter" to do so in a bed as opposed to outdoors. Tanning salon employees like Heather Carrillo, who worked at a salon for a year and a half, say they are taught in their "Smart-Tan Certification" to "never say indoor tanning is 'safe' [but] to say it is 'smart.' Obviously getting a tan is not safe, so the selling point is that in a bed you can monitor the exact amount of exposure as opposed to tanning outside where the UV percentages change every day."

So is this true? Is tanning indoors smarter that outdoors due to the "controlled environment" of a bed? David E. Bank, MD, a dermatologist and educational spokesperson for The Skin Cancer Foundation, says no. In fact, he maintains that it's quite the opposite -- tanning indoors is actually more dangerous to the health of your skin because "you're getting a much higher concentration of the longer wavelength UVA, which damages more deeply into the skin" than being out in the sun. And research backs him up. "Frequent tanners using new, high-pressure sunlamps may receive as much as 12 times the annual UVA dose compared to the dose they receive from sun exposure" and are "74 percent more likely to develop melanoma than those who have never tanned indoors," says The Skin Cancer Foundation.

"Tanorexia" is a real disease

A disorder that means a tanned person never feels like they are "tan enough" is a real issue; one that has garnered the street term, "tanorexia."

In a study published in the "Archives of Dermatology," behavioral scientists found that a subgroup of college students who tanned indoors showed tell-tale signs of a substance-related disorder -- meaning they were hooked on tanning the same way people are addicted to drugs and alcohol. These frequent tanners, or "tanorexics," were also "more likely to report moderate to severe symptoms of anxiety and depression than their peers who were not addicted to tanning or did not tan at all," says "Time" magazine.

All of the addicted students polled knew that they could develop skin cancer from using tanning beds, but 98 percent said the risk didn't prevent them from wanting to be more tan.

Salons don't turn "tanorexics" away

"We didn't turn people away," says former tanning salon associate Carrillo. So a person could come in and tan in a bed every day if they wanted to. "We would try and discourage people if they were already burnt, as burned skin doesn't tan, but some would still tan -- which I thought was crazy," she says. "Sometimes, we would have people sign waivers for liability if they wanted to do something that we didn't agree with, like tan for the max amount [of time] the first time they tanned," she says, but no one is ever flat out denied despite safety rules. 

The FDA doesn't highly regulate tanning beds

Despite the fact that the ultraviolet radiation emitted during a tanning bed session is a proven human carcinogen, the FDA lists tanning beds in the lowest of the three regulatory classes for medical devices, Class I. That means currently, beds are given the same regulation as elastic bandages and tongue depressors, says The Skin Cancer Foundation. So basically, tan at your own, very high, risk.

They convince you that if you're tan, you won't burn

Tanning salons will tell a light complexioned person that they should tan indoors before going on vacation as the darker they are, the less likely they will be to burn in the sun. This is totally false, says Dr. Bank. While one might be less likely to burn in the sun if they naturally have a dark complexion like Middle Easterners, Hispanics, and Blacks, someone that has naturally light skin can still burn no matter how many times they have laid in a tanning bed.

"It's a sales tactic," says Carrillo. "Only sunscreen will help you not burn," she says, "but it worked [to sell tanning sessions]!" 

They lobby for government protection

Even though The International Agency for Research on Cancer, an affiliate of the World Health Organization, includes the UV radiation from tanning beds as one of the most dangerous cancer-causing substances (it's right up there with cigarettes and plutonium), there is no federal regulation banning children under the age of 18 from using the beds. Some states require written parental consent for children between the ages of 14 and 18 to tan, but Carrillo says even that isn't highly enforced.

So why can children under 18 tan? "Part of the problem in this country is that politics is driven by dollars, and the tanning parlor industry has deep pockets to contribute to legislators who vote against bills that would ban minors," says Dr. Bank. There is a powerful lobby out there that has a monetary interest in letting children expose themselves to this extremely dangerous substance.

Tanning beds can be a sweaty cesspool

Compared to the fact that they can kill you, it might seem minor that many beds are full of bacteria and viruses. But salons don't want you to know just what a petri dish of germs their beds really are. Substances reported to be found: Sweat, pee and semen. "It can get pretty gross in those lay-down beds," says Carrillo. "People would leave and there would be pools of sweat on the bed. I always cleaned the beds well, but some girls weren't as diligent. They would use the same cleaning rags [customer after customer]," she says.

While "the cleaner used is supposed to be anti-virus, I actually got a rash once. I thought my back was breaking out really bad but when I asked my doctor, she told me it was a virus that you can contract from a tanning bed [that hasn’t been disinfected]," says Carrillo. 

(totalbeauty.com)