Most women don’t have perfect skin. But a lot of them puts on a lot of foundation to cover blemishes and ends up with a cakey effect. The wise thing is to use concealer instead and then use minimal foundation needed. I prefer to use concealer before foundation. A common misconception is to use a shade or two lighter than your skin colour- I absolutely disagree with it. Concealer should be an exact match to your skin, just like foundation.
Blemish covering concealer:
Select Cover-up by MAC is the best for blemishes. If you are having break outs, or have acne spots, scar, redness, dark circles and you can only afford one concealer- this is what I recommend. It is a liquid and comes in a small tube- very easy to use and convenient to travel with.
Studio Finish Concealer by MAC is the second best. It does everything that Select Cover-up does, but it has SPF 35, which is a good thing. However, SPF has an ingredient called Titanium Dioxide in it which reflects light and makes skin look shiny. So I try to avoid it for the photo days.
Studio Sculpt Concealer by MAC is a cream and best for dry skin. A little goes a long way. If too much is applied, the thick formula tends to make skin look cakey.
Makeup For Ever makes 5-Camouflage Palette Cream concealer. There are 5 colours – so it may not be cost effective for a regular woman. It has decent coverage and there are 5 different palettes. One is a colour corrective palette. One palette is for dark skin and 3 palettes are for light skin ( the 3 are VERY similar).
Colour Correcting Concealer:
There are different colour correcting concealers available that works based on the colour theory. For example, green concealer would take out any redness in skin – but I feel that green on skin only makes it look ashy. Peach is a GREAT colour correcting concealer for under eye circles. Peach takes out the blue/purple undertone of under eye circles. My favourite peach concealer is by Bobby Brown. They have more pinky tones for lighter skin and peach to dark peach tones for darker skin.