Summer is here! Along with it come the humidity and scorching heat ready to wreck elaborate alternative makeup looks faster than you can open your parasol. If you’d rather not forgo your unique style during this hateful season here are some product tips to help manage and ideas for alternative makeup looks that are summer-weather-tolerant!

Foundations- When you want a made up face in hot weather (such as a paled out skin Gothic style or a perfectly smooth doll like face) many products can quickly fall into your pores and look uneven or sweat off entirely during summer. Powdery foundations need a lot of touching up in the humidity in my experience, so I would recommend trying silicone-based liquid formulas. Silicone-based foundations create a layer between your skin and the moist air which helps prevent slipping and melting (a good example of a cheap silicone based foundation is CoverGirl’s “TruBlend“). In summer I often forgo foundation entirely and opt for high spf color correcting creams, my personal favorite is Clinique’s “CC cream” (it’s spf30 and gives my skin a luminous effect).

Eyeshadows- Opt for eyeshadows of a creamy sort rather than powder types. Powders can shift in high humidity and ruin your application or end up cakey looking, they will need an industrial strength primer applied first if you want to keep with the powders. Maybelline’s “Color Tattoo” has a great lasting cream base and lots of fun colors that’d work beautifully for lots of alternative looks. Same goes for blushers and bronzers, opt for creamy formulas rather than powders if you want them to withstand the weather.

Eyeliners and Mascaras- Waterproof liquid eyeliners and mascaras are sacred come summer weather! I love my Maybelline “Line Works” eyeliner year round, that sharp little applicator makes doing neat details and sharp fine linework super easy- and the waterproof formula does not move, even if I dance the entire night.

Lips- I’m a big tinted lip-balm fan year round. My lips are naturally not very pigmented (I guess all my color is concentrated in my sea of freckles) so I like a lip stain or tinted balm at a minimum, and in summer stains replace all the lipsticks in my bag. Sometimes lipstick can feel like too much when it’s gross outside, and gloss can feel goopy and gross. Colored stains give your lips a flush of color without heaviness or blurring. Also firm lipsticks and balms can melt in your hot purse so be careful about how you store them to prevent a big mess! Despite their goofy “Lipsies” name, the red color is really cute and bright and tastes like the sort of cherry lipbalm I used when I was 12. You can also color your lips with lip-liner for a lasting color boost, run a layer of spf lip balm over that if you are going outside at all.

Set your foundation using a translucent finishing or setting powder, Makeup Forever has a really nice one that absorbs sweat and keeps your foundation/blush in place. There are also setting sprays for this same effect but I have less experience with those.

Keep blotting papers (or Starbucks napkins in a pinch) and a fan handy! On transit in the city during the hot summer you’ll see all sorts of clever fans waving in front of ladies’ faces. I also think there’s something perfectly Lolita or Gothic about a folding fan that matches your look, let’s bring back coordinating fan accessories!

When it’s super hot I often just opt to focus on one impact-product rather than doing a full face, my face is where I sweat most on my body (thanks for that, genetics) so foundations and powders just don’t stick around despite my best efforts. Often I’ll go for a lined and bright lip color as a focal point and some waterproof mascara and cc cream, a black lipstick would work nicely for this feel too! Or opt for blown out smokey black cream eyeshadow and nude lips for a spooky summer feel. That way I only have 1 major color product to upkeep throughout the day’s heat and that somehow feels easier than a full face melting off, heh.

Other Gloomthzine summer survival tips can be found here.

-Taeden

Blot