By stufflovely
Everyone applies their foundation differently, and technically there’s no right or wrong way to do it — but if you’re the type who pumps or squeezes their foundation directly onto a makeup brush before buffing it in, you might want to reconsider that method. As makeup artist Tamra Lord recently pointed out on TikTok, doing that can end up wasting lots of precious product.
“Look where all that product just went; this product just went straight into my brush,” Lord explained while demonstrating with a full-coverage foundation and dense buffing brush. “[That] means it’s going to get deep into the bristles and not give you as much coverage as you thought.” Not to mention, she says, cleaning brushes thoroughly is way harder when you use that technique.
Luckily, she has a very simple tip that can fix this problem entirely — one that went viral on TikTok with more than 1.8 million views and counting. “This is what you’re going to do instead: find a non-porous surface, put the same amount of foundation [as you normally put on a brush], and then put it onto your face like this,” Lord explains while spreading her foundation in circular motions using the plastic cap from another foundation tube. “You’re going to use a lot less product and get a ton more coverage, and you’re not going to have to wash your brushes as quickly, either.”
As Lord tells Allure, she actually learned this tip from a fellow makeup artist during a workshop in Los Angeles. That artist recommended applying products with non-porous surfaces, and shortly after, foundation bottle caps kind of became Lord’s thing. “All my foundation bottles have these lids, and I just realized when I was doing clients how much further the product went [when I used them for application],” she recalls. “And I realized that my brushes were so much easier to clean because they were not harvesting all that product deep down in the bristles.”
Of course, you can always apply foundation with the original makeup tool: your fingers. But not everyone likes getting products all over their hands — if that sounds like you, consider this helpful trick and grab the nearest bottle cap or any other hard, small surface you’ve got lying around during your next makeup session.
More tips from TikTok:
Now, see how base makeup has evolved within the past 100 years:
