Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6

Original poster

When bad makeup happens to good people

133 replies

Smoresleepplease · 17/10/2018 11:04

Would you want to be told if you’re makeup looked awful??
Saw one of the teaching assistants this morning on the school run, walking along with a friend/colleague. She’s quite young(26 perhaps) and her foundation looked shocking. Wrong colour and no blending whatsoever. Just a tide-mark of orange about 2cm from the edge of her face. If I was said friend/colleague, maybe I’d have kindly said something along the lines of ‘Oo, do this(and gestured on my own face a ‘blending’ motion)’.
Would that BU?
Would you want to be told?

OP posts:

problembottom · 17/10/2018 12:02

This is when you need a kid around. One of my nieces once asked me curiously why I had an orange line round the edge of my face! My DSis told her off but I took the hint and upgraded my foundation.

DontCallMeCharlotte · 17/10/2018 12:03

Eyelashes that look like crows smashed into a chalk cliff.

Brilliant description!

I went out with a couple of friends (mother and daughter) last week whose lashes looked exactly like that. Worryingly, the daughter is a lash technician

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 17/10/2018 12:05

I don't think you should tell her because, as others have said, she might actually like that look.

I know a mum here who had her eyebrows removed and has tattoo'd eyebrows on, at least a cm above where her own would have been and pencil thin. They look terrible - but she must have chosen that look at some point in her life, and whether or not she still loves it, there's not much she can do about it now, so no point in saying anything!

I appreciate you want her to look better, but if she's happy with it, she won't thank you.

NationalShiteDay · 17/10/2018 12:14

I would absolutely want to be told by a close friend. Not a school mum tho!

I still haven't forgiven my colleagues who let me spend half the day at work with beetroot juice up my cheek. That was 10 years ago too.

SeekingClosure · 17/10/2018 12:15

I feel sad when I see young women with thick black brows and unnatural contouring. It ruins their natural beauty, when surely make up should compliment it? They are often rendered unrecognisable. At least my 80s blue mascara and lilac eyeliner didn't do that!

There's a young woman who works in my local Homey B's who wears so much metallic-coloured highlighter ALL OVER her face that she looks like she's been galvanised.

noeffingidea · 17/10/2018 12:16

No, don't say anything. It's probably how she wants to look. I've been watching some professional make up tutorials on youtube, it's like having a mask painted on, and underneath there are thousands of comments saying how wonderful they look, and anyone that says anything slightly critical is a 'hater'. Just let them get on with it.

SassitudeandSparkle · 17/10/2018 12:17

I have a foundation that oxidises, it was fine at first then I looked at myself half way through the day and I was oompa-loompa orange

The current trends for eyebrows and eyelashes are not ones I follow myself. The MN term 'angry birds eyebrows' is accurate.

bringbackthestripes · 17/10/2018 12:18

I once tried to kindly tell a friend about her orange foundation (early 20’s) she replied that she knew it looked wrong in daylight but it looked great under the artificial lights at work

I’ve never tried to tell anyone since. They own mirrors so up to them how they want to look.

SaucyJack · 17/10/2018 12:20

No, don’t say anything. The young’uns must like the current trend of looking like the love children of C3P0 and an Oompa Loompa- or else they wouldn’t all be doing it by the 1000s.

JessieLemon · 17/10/2018 12:24

It ruins their natural beauty, when surely make up should compliment it?

Whoops, I must have missed the instructional leaflet that comes with my eyeshadow palettes that tells me what make is and isn’t intended for

Weirdly, there are no rules and people get to use makeup in whichever way they wish.

GreatDuckCookery6211 · 17/10/2018 12:25

I'd tell a good friend, someone that I know would tell me in that situation, but nobody else.

I see someone like this from DC's school. She's very pretty and takes good care of her appearance but I think she must put her makeup on in the dark! Her foundation and blusher is never blended and there's always little blobs around her eyebrows.

Peridot1 · 17/10/2018 12:25

I do wonder what they will all think looking back at photos in a few years.

I saw a sales assistant in our local Next a couple of months ago and her make up was shocking. Stripes of colour and highlighter. Ridiculous eyebrows and lashes. Lipstick that was caked on. I was surprised she was allowed on the shop floor looking the way she did. I saw a couple of other people doing a double take at her too.

Tinkobell · 17/10/2018 12:27

No I wouldn't say anything because tbh some days my own application is rather hit and miss. But I would tell someone if they'd a lippy kiss mark on their cheek! Has anyone noticed that Mel (Tamsin Outhwaites) lippy in eastenders is very 'off piste'.....I'm wondering if it's intentional and part of her character as a blonde pitbull???

YouOKHun · 17/10/2018 12:28

My DBs new GF is such a pretty girl but she has gone bonkers with the contouring which means her face is covered in copper coloured and gold patches. She’s gone full Groucho Marx in the eyebrow department, massive Lilly Savage false eyelashes and lip liner outside her natural lip line - more Coco the Clown than subtly enhancing. I find it really distracting and find her difficult to communicate with because it feels like such a mask. Though to be fair it’s expertly applied, just too much of it. I suspected she was an mlm bot and sure enough she’s into Younique. However, I would never tell her because it would be unkind and it’s not my place to comment, but I do see people doing a double take when she walks into the room. I think she thinks everyone fancies her but I’m not convinced that’s the reason they’re staring

Jaxhog · 17/10/2018 12:29

I once sat across a table in a meeting with a high powered (big 6) consultant. All I could focus on was the blog of unblended foundation on her nose. I wasn't brave enough to tell her.

It taught me to check blending as the last part of my make up though!

katseyes7 · 17/10/2018 12:31

My ex sister in law used to work on a cosmetic counter for a high end company. l genuinely cannot imagine why anyone would have had the inclination to ask her for makeup advice. She had the ubiquitous orange face and white neck, with sparkly blue eyeshadow from lashes to brow.
Horrific. She looked like a drag queen. A very bad one.

spanishwife · 17/10/2018 12:36

The rule is: if it can be fixed in less than a couple of minutes with a tiny mirror, then tell them.

If it's spinach in teeth, bit of makeup blending, or top on back to front, then tell them (whoever it is, stranger or friend). If it's a whole makeup look, bad fake tan or dodgy outfit, then let them get on with it as they can't do much to fix it in that moment, other than feel bad.

Bluntness100 · 17/10/2018 12:39

I'd wish to be told, but conversely wouldn't wish to tell a stranger. Purely because they may take deep offence.

My daughter did once have this issue and I just pulled her aside and said come here baby and blended it for her, and got a rather grumpy but appreciative ffs mum for my efforts.

I'm not even sure I'd tell a friend, I did have one who had fake tanned herself to the extreme and covered her face in bronzer and in thr day light it just looked dry and caked and sitting on her skin like a mask, but I struggled to tell her as she's quite prickly so I was unsure how she'd take it.

Although another friend did walk in and say to her loudly " fuck me uou been at rhe fake tan or what? 🤣🤣🤣

kayakingmum · 17/10/2018 12:39

A couple of things - if you are good at handling people maybe you could say something. A stranger at my cousin's wedding told my mum about an correction stick thing to hide my mum's wrinkles and blemishes when they were in the toilet. She used it on her and my mum was so impressed always uses it now.

On a similar front I saw a lady wear black see-through leggings with red and white striped pants. I wanted to say something but couldn't.

LightDrizzle · 17/10/2018 12:41

she looks like she’s been galvanised

luffly1 · 17/10/2018 12:41

I'm sure most of them will get a good laugh out of it! ('80s poodle perm veteran here, I thought I looked amazing and I used to get so many compliments on my hair! )

GoatWithACoat · 17/10/2018 12:42

Eyelashes that look like crows smashed into a chalk cliff

upsideup · 17/10/2018 12:47

No don't say anything...obviously. How rude.

This is such a strange of thinking, its rude to not tell somone there foundation needs blending.
Its so much worse to get home at the end of the day to look in the mirror and realise you've looked like that all day and think of all the people you've spoken to who didnt care enough to tell you

lalalalyra · 17/10/2018 12:53

This drives me mad with my DD's (twin 15yo's) apparently without the line no-one would know the had foundation on... Which I was told with an absolute look of disdain. Apparently the fact I don't look like I have make up on when I wear my day to day make up is "pointless".

ainsisoisje · 17/10/2018 12:56

I would leave it well alone, its rude, seems judgemental and condescending.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6