It’s time for the first, and possibly only, installment of Lazy, Gender-Neutral Beauty Advice. Options presented below in reverse order of effectiveness but chronological order with regard to frequency.
Gently–very gently–bat wet eyelashes in the shower over your extended forefingers repeatedly until enough mascara has Shroud of Turin’d itself onto your knuckles to merit handwashing.
Pinch pre-wettened thumb and forefinger against the eyelid, slowly and carefully pushing as much of the mascara as possible off of your eyelashes.
Wait for the majority of your makeup to migrate to the undereye area, then periodically and vigorously swipe at it with your thumbs.
Shower normally, but without actually washing your face, then paw at your eyes with a bath towel, slowly ruining your towels.
Use a baby wipe to meticulously wipe all eye makeup off and away from the eyes.
Shower normally, counting the shampoo runoff that made it past your hairline and down to your chin as washing your face, then paw at your eyes with a wad of dry toilet paper, slowly using up all of your toilet paper.
Use a baby wipe to carelessly smudge the majority of your eye makeup to your temples, then paw at your temples with the back of your hand.
Pinch dry thumb- and forefinger-nails against the eyelid, somewhat carefully scraping as many dried clumps of the mascara as possible off of your eyelashes.
Apply eye makeup remover to eyes; wash face normally.
Tags: advice, beauty, eyeliner, gender-neutral beauty advice, mascara, these are all techniques i have used in the last month
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MALLORY HAVE YOU BEEN OBSERVING MY MAINTENANCE HABITS I SWEAR I DO ALL OF THESE THINGS
My thoughts exactly. Going to check my bathroom for cameras when I get home.
I like to slap jojoba oil on my eyes and then wipe it off with towels. That way I can feel earthy and “chemical-free” while simultaneously ruining towels. <3 jojoba oil.
Also, the eye featured in this post has gorgeous makeup and enviable lashes!
Wait but how is there not then an oily film left on your eyes after that??
I kinda pat my eyes dry and then it’s not oily. My eye area is a little extra moisturized afterward though, but I have dry skin so I could always use it. Plus I like to think it helps condition my brittle eyelashes.
I also used coconut oil for a spell, but the container was pretty big and the oil got black spots in it before I could finish the whole jar. So in spite of its good smell, the mold factor was sickening enough to push me to jojoba.
I finally found that dampening a cotton pad with warm water then squirting a little jojoba oil on it is a good “moist wipe.” I then use a clean end of that pad to wipe up the smears, then wash rest of face and eyelash line detail with that Magic Mitt, which seems to work for everything except my current mascara. (BeneFit’s “They’re Real”)
Also! Jojoba oil is not truly an oil; it’s a wax, very similar to sebum. It rubs in and doesn’t leave much residue at all, or at least it doesn’t feel oilier than my bare skin.
oh man I was into it until you compared it to sebum!
It’s pretty gross when it comes out in clumps on a pore strip, but sebum is pretty cool when it’s not out of control! It helps regulate our body temperature and keeps skin and hair soft (and a bit water-resistant). It doesn’t help that “sebum” is a gross word though. :-/ Anyway, jojoba oil definitely does not feel (to me) like greasy skin at all.
Also: forget you are wearing eye makeup, wash face as normal, go to bed, wonder in morning why the circles under your eyes are even darker than usual.
My usual strategy is to wait until the end of the night when I am still a little drunk, look at the large black smudge surrounding my eyes, assume that I did my makeup like that intentionally earlier in the evening, and then press a cold wet washcloth against my face once, really hard, and go to bed.
But in the morning I do at least the first half of this list, definitely.
Also known is the inadvertent thinning of the eyelashes, right? Or are my eyelashes just really loose?
I bought my first tube of mascara in seriously ten years recently, as part of this thing where I suddenly want to wear bitch red lipstick and have cartoon deer eyelashes every day (a surprise twist after an entire lifetime of never wearing makeup). It was YSL Shocking, it was $30, and I swear it is made by witches. This stuff has stayed unsmudged through a sweaty concert, through tears, and through me falling asleep flat on my face for three hours. It only comes off when I want it to come off: with a nice gentle swipe of warm water on tissue. IT’S FRIGGIN AMAZING
Word to all of this, but ALSO I’m here to preach the gospel of the Costco Kirkland brand makeup wipes. Shit WORKS even on the hell-mascara I slather all over my lashes. Note: I don’t think I would recommend full face with these, the formula is…weird? made of terrifying chemicals? and I’ve heard reports of it affecting sensitive skin. Maybe pre-shower/face wash would work best. BOOM.
What’s awful is I HAVE lots of makeup removing items, I just am unbelievably lazy.
WORD. Costco is my absolute jam.
I am a thumb-swiper and a towel-ruiner. I thought I was the only one and that I was missing some vital woman skill that everyone else learned from their sisters!
I now shower, ruin a washcloth by scrubbing absently at my eyes, and then remove the black smudge around my eyes with whatever face wipes are on sale at Duane Reade.
Game changer: I bought a charcoal-colored hand towel specifically for drying my face. Camouflages [Method 4], and you never have that horrible moment when you use the hair/face bath towel and realize that your boyfriend is still failing to comprehend your towel-partitioning system, as there is almost certainly a pube stuck to your cheek.
You have to HIDE the face towels
(The charcoal colored hand towel is genius, though.)
Yup, I happened to see my husband wipe his junk with our shared bath towel post-coitus, and then he DIDN’T IMMEDIATELY PUT THAT TOWEL IN THE HAMPER WTF HAS THIS HAPPENED PREVIOUSLY WHAT ARE YOU NOT TELLING ME? So yeah, that was a conversation.
AKA: We ain’t never having sex again, bub, and also, you are banned from this bathroom.
1. Forget you are wearing eye makeup
2. Get into shower with boyfriend
3. Wonder why boyfriend is looking at you like that
4. Horrifying self-realization
(prays that HTML works in these comments)
YES EXACTLY hair and all
DARKPLACE DARKPLACE DARKPLACE DARKPLACE!
Something was pouring from his mouth. He examined his sleeve. Blood? Blood. Crimson, copper-smelling blood – his blood. Blood. Blood. Blood. And bits of sick.
1. Wash face normally the night after.
2. There will still be black eyeliner on your face, but in a way that makes it look even better than the day before.
3. Look foine.
4. Wash face normally and the last of the eyeliner residue will be gone.
You speak the truth. Sadly I have never have my act together enough to line my eyes the day before I actually want them to look good.
1) Go to bed without removing make up.
2) Wake up the next morning, quickly remember that you wore eye makeup the night before.
3) Stare at self in mirror, wonder where the hell the makeup ran off to.
I use Urban Decay eyeliner, which isn’t suppose to suck…? WTF? Is it disappearing in the void? I sleep on my back to so it’s not like it’s rubbing off on my pillows.
You should try the Urban Decay primer! I pish poshed primer because it seemed like just one extra thing. I’m a performer and if I have to do my makeup early in the day, it still will last all the way through a show. My eye makeup even looks perfect after a run. I mean, I should probably run harder, but still. Makeup doesn’t move!
Although the mom in me is fretting about all of you getting eye infections or something. Remove your makeup! All of you! And also floss your teeth!
Put a glob of St. Ives makeup remover cream into your hand, go with it into shower.
Get out mid-shower, sprinkling floor with water, to check the mirror to see how well/badly your eye makeup is removed.
Be unsatisfied; rub the rest off with eye makeup remover pads, messing up your contact lenses in the process.
Slip on wet floor on the way back into the shower.
Alternatively: never remove eye makeup, try to not mess it up in the shower so you can get away with not having to reapply.
I’ve been too afraid to wear contacts in the shower for a loooooong time. It’s the one piece of doctor-issued advice I’ve followed.
Wait, I’m afraid to ask why. Just don’t tell me something about water bacteria 😐 (I also wear them in pools/the ocean. Otherwise I’m a conscientious contact lens wearer, though!)
Can NOT go to sleep without removing make-up, but I primarily use method 7 and sometimes 2.
Regular conversation in my house –
Boyfriend: Aren’t you going to take off your makeup?
Me: I did take it off. I washed my face in the shower!
Boyfriend: Oh. It looks like you’re still wearing eyeliner.
Me: I don’t wear eyeliner.
I just use the gentlest soap I can find and wash my whole face, including eyeball area, with it! apparently this is some kind of “no no” but it works just fine, my face is cool with it. dove unscented or just a pure unscented glycerine soap… no mascara smears and no pain.
Right?? I just wash my face with Cetaphil and scrub my eyes when I do it. I don’t know why it’s a no-no but I’m sure as hell not going to all that ^ trouble.
If you’re wearing eye makeup every day, I don’t know what to tell you, as you are more of an adult than I.
However, if, while getting ready for a night out, you put your contact lens case on top of one of those packets of makeup remover wipes AND PUT BOTH OF THOSE ON YOUR PILLOW, it greatly increases the chances you will not go to bed with a faceful of makeup and also get your contacts out.
That second-to-last one is how I accidentally pulled out about a dozen of my eyelashes in one move the other day. Now I’m wearing extra eyeliner to hide the bald spot, and it’s smearing everywhere.
1. Wash face normally in shower, step out and grab some q-tips. Scrub away a layer of delicate undereye flesh, while the raccoon eyes somehow remain. Feel powerless. Try oil-cleansing. Feel powerless. Seriously consider taking a page out of Avril Levigne’s style book. Break down and use soap. Wince.
2. Give up mascara for a few weeks out of poverty, and feel incredulous when your eyelashes become really long and thick soon after. Decide that mascara’s secret ingredient must be eyelash poison and never repurchase it again.
Use nothing. Let it run in shower. Wipe up with towel after. Explain nothing to boyfriend/husband/partner/whatever. Always explain nothing, while using large quantities of Aveda moisturizer. THEY CANNOT RESIST THE AVEDA.
At some point in day, weep desperately until all eye makeup is gone.
Alternatively, be too exhausted to give any fucks about how much eye makeup is left on eyes
The proper way for me is swiping a bit of maybelline waterproof remover on a damp cotton square all over eyelids, then rinsing with water, then washing whole face with Cetaphil to stop oily feeling from the remover, but I usually can’t be arsed doing it.
Just this week I was going to straighten up and fly right about removing my eye makeup, and then I had to use four makeup remover wipes, two applications of oil (jojoba and then olive), and what I thought was surely an adequate amount of profanity, and that shit was still coming off in sooty lumps of defeat, so fuck it. I'm going back to the procedure in this post with the addition of some charcoal-colored towels, which some wise person mentioned in an earlier comment.