Lesson Learned! The Trick Carol Shaw Learned to Fix Excessive Shadow Fallout  

As told by Carol Shaw, founder of LORAC Cosmetics

When I was a new makeup artist, I thought there was only one way of doing makeup—the traditional way—where first you apply the foundation, then the concealer and powder, and then complete the rest of the face.

But doing makeup this way started to create problems for me. I use powder eye shadows, which can fall and create marks under the eyes. I once noticed a slight under eye shadow in a photograph of a shoot I worked on, and even though I was probably the only one who noticed, I’m a perfectionist and it really bothered me.  

In the beginning, I really struggled with product fallout and cleaning up under the eyes. The idea of foundation and concealer is to cover dark circles, and you definitely don’t want to create dark circles from fall out! But I was never quite able to remove all the traces of eye shadow and would have to re-apply the concealer. This was super time consuming and also hard on the delicate skin in the eye area after all the rubbing to remove the product. I could tell my clients were getting irritated—on their skin and at the process. I really wanted to figure out a way to combat the problem.

While working in a Beverly Hills beauty salon, another makeup artist shared a technique with me that solved my problem and provided a faster, easier, more efficient way to apply makeup with flawless results. She taught me to do the eyes first, before the complexion, which made it easy and effortless to clean up and was a huge time-saver. Learning this technique changed the way I did makeup forever!

Now I always do eyes first when I’m working on my celebrity clients. It looks cleaner and there aren’t any dark or dirty marks from shadow fall out. My clients love that I do eyes first because this is a gentle way of doing makeup that keeps them looking fresh and perfectly clean—plus it saves their skin and their time.