Today, we’re spilling all the tea on eye makeup hacks for sensitive and watery eyes! To all of our fellow sensitive and watery eyed girlies out there, stay tuned for the ultimate eye makeup guide.
Sensitive eyes can be such a pain when applying makeup. Sometimes they choose to water just as you're about to finish your liner, and sometimes the skin around your eyes begins to itch as you just finish your best look. It’s just so unfair!
Millie, the founder of Human Beauty, has dealt with photophobia and light sensitivity all her life. Read more about her journey as a disabled entrepreneur in our latest blog. For example, non-vegan eyeshadows have been a nightmare to Millie's eyes, as they often have irritating formulas.
That's what brought her to look for a hypoallergenic eyeshadow palette for her makeup looks! Millie is a veteran at choosing the best products to suit sensitive skin… and lucky for us she is going to show us how to use them too!
Choose your products wisely
We recommend looking for hypoallergenic eyeshadows or products that specifically say they are free from: parabens, sulphates, drying alcohols. These are normally the best for sensitive skin, especially around the eyes.
It’s important that you patch test any product you aren’t sure of. So if you’re trying out a new eyeshadow palette, we recommend trying the shades on the inside of your wrists first. If you don’t have a reaction to the swatch then the product is more than likely to be okay to use around your eyes.
The entire Human Beauty line has been specifically designed to be gentle on sensitive skin, with vegan and cruelty-free formulas, free from sulphates, parabens and drying alcohols
The Makeup Therapy Palette
The wonderful Lauren is wearing our Makeup Therapy Palette for this metallic smokey pink look.
The Makeup Therapy Palette is an hypoallergenic eyeshadow palette which is made to be gentle on sensitive skin. Because she struggles with sensitive and watery eyes, Millie has put a lot of effort into creating a palette that is specifically sensitive skin friendly.
Our Makeup Therapy Palette is made from smooth formulas that don’t tug on your skin, perfect for a soft application. Smoother formulas are gentler on sensitive eyes as the area around the eye isn’t pulled too much, which can cause the eye to water.
Read more about the Makeup Therapy palette here.
Keep your brushes clean
We know that cleaning your brushes every week isn't an option for just about everyone!
We all lead very busy lives and a clean makeup brush isn’t always at the top of our to-do list. For those of us who are chronically ill, it can be an even harder task to muster up the energy to do it! Sometimes we are already all out of spoons at that point and that's okay.
However, dirty brushes can collect all sorts of bacteria that can irritate your skin in the long term. So if going over to the sink and giving them a good scrub isn't an option for you, keep on reading:
Here are Millie's top tips for cleaning her makeup brushes when she has the energy to do a full clean. Plus a little hack for those in between times.
Remember to try to only use your products and tools when doing your makeup as bacteria can also spread through sharing products. Contact dermatitis is a big risk that comes from applying used products. We know sharing is caring, but when it comes to makeup for sensitive skin, it’s okay to be selfish :)
Our Top Makeup Hacks
Now that our brushes are clean and we’ve picked and tested the right products for our skin, let’s focus on how we apply makeup to our eyes to minimise any irritation.
It’s important to be gentle with any part of your face, but especially your eyes. Packing on powdered products near your eyes can cause a lot of fallout, so we recommend slowly building up any colour on your lids with more layers.
If your eyes are really sensitive it might be better for you to wear lighter eyeshadow and focus your designs around your eye instead of directly on your lid.
Our beautiful model Jen is modelling a light base of Courage with the rest of her design being black stars around her eyes. This is a perfect eyeshadow look for sensitive eyes as there aren't any dark colours or liners under the eye to irritate it. Simple, effective and bold!
We also love to use stencils and stickers for creating looks like this as it creates high impact eyeshadow looks with minimal effort (also great for us shaky hand girlies - blog post coming soon)!
Our gorgeous model Camryn is wearing our shade Challenge as a graphic liner. This graphic liner look is so good for sensitive eyes as it avoids the key areas that can get irritated and watery.
Mixing hypoallergenic eyeshadow with water to create a liner is one of our best kept secrets. It creates a more gentle eyeliner for sensitive skin! Unlike a traditional liner, it won’t tug at your skin when you’re removing it.
Millie, our founder, avoids placing shadow on her waterline and bottom lash areas on her most eye sensitive days, just in case her eyes are slightly irritated by the shadow fallout.
Wiping your Makeup Off
As gorgeous as a full face of makeup is, it’s not good for our faces to be wearing products for more than 24 hours. So just as we take our time applying the makeup, we have to be gentle taking it off too.
Finding a gentle cleanser to remove your makeup is a game changer to reducing irritation around the eyes. Try products that won’t tug at your skin and don't contain any harmful ingredients. Vegan products are normally the best for this!
Whether you choose hypoallergenic eyeshadows or cleaning your brushes more often; there are several simple tips you can use to apply your eye makeup without any tears.
We hope this guide helps you create your best and boldest makeup looks, despite your sensitive eyes!
So take what you've learned here today, let your imagination run wild, and have fun!
