How to Cover Tattoos ...or NOT - Horrible First Time!

Sorry for the late post...I had a pretty damaging weekend.  I had one wedding at 3:45am and another one at 9:20am (and another client in the afternoon).  Both weddings had tattoo coverage issues!!!  

I am not experienced with covering tattoos!  So I thought I'd share my story in my adventures in tattoo coverage as a noob.

I use MAC Prolong Wear concealer, which is not heavy enough to cover their tattoos. I usually recommend going to a costume or tattoo shop to buy special tattoo concealers.  I don't cover enough tattoos to make it a worthy purchase for my kit  (I covered 1 in one year last year...some girl had a star on her cheek!!).

(fail as a tattoo coverage)

The first bride bought a Makeup Forever orange lipliner?!  WHY?!  The Sephora associate told her that orange cancelled out black.  The other concealer was also a cream base so the orange creaminess of the liner and the Ben Nye concealer blended in with each other...it ended up like a horrible orange splotch on the arm!

(fail as a tattoo coverage)

We took that off and tried again with using only the other concealer she bought, which was the Ben Nye concealer wheel that she bought from Karrie's Kostumes in St.Albert.  By this time, the groom was really close to barging in the door (they were playing door games at the time) so my time frame was super small and I was panicking due to time constraints!  Ugghghg...the wheel was really awesome at covering it but all 4 colors in the wheel didn't match her skin color!

(semi-failed only because it was the skin wrong color but provided pretty good coverage)

Panicking some more, I ran and grabbed my MAC Prolong Wear concealer and started going over top of the Ben Nye product.  It covered okay but the color showed through a bit.  I'm not sure if I didn't put enough Ben Nye product on or if the Prolongwear concealer took off the Ben Nye product.

After I tried matching the color as close as possible, I used a triangle makeup sponge and dipped it in Pros-Aide.

(goes over top the creamy product on the skin)

(dusted over pros-aide:  awesome for drawn-on tattoo preservation, no good for tattoo coverage!)

Pros-aide is a prosthetics glue.  I used it previously to preserve cream makeup on a model once.  I colored in her tattoo with the Makeup Forever Flash Pallette and then used the glue to swipe over it so that the cream wouldn't smear.  Then I dusted it with the Makeup Forever HD powder (translucent).  The models said she had a hard time getting it off...It's supposed to keep the cream tattoo on for days... (as per Ashly McKessock and her Makeup Artists Magazine!).

(used pros-aide over top of right arm tattoo for extra longevity and anti-smearing of creamy products!)

After dipping the sponge, I swiped it over the bride's tattoo coverage thinking I could help her preserve it better so it wouldn't smear....and then I dusted it with translucent powder.  *SIGH*  PROBLEM!

The translucent powder showed up against the glue?!  I guess it will work with colored tattoos, but not skin-covered-trying-to-cover-a-tattoo-concealer.  So I shoved on some more MAC concealer and patted it with some pressed powder (not translucent).

(I personally think it turned out looking like a bruise...pretty sure some of the black was still peeking through despite the slathered concealers....)

(she changed dresses in the evening and took off the concealers)

The second bride had a tattoo on her left chest just about her left boob...it was of a black heart thing...it was mostly lasered off so the blackness of the tattoo wasn't as black.  There was tissue scarring though.  Naomi had also previously gone to Sephora to check out Cover F/X (which is a brand known to cover tattoos) and she couldn't find her shade...she said it was too orange.  She bought a Makeup Forever concealer pencil and the Makeup Forever Full Cover Concealer.

(The pencil did nothing for her faded tattoo.  Nothing.  If you're reading this, Naomi...return it.)

The Makeup Forever Full Cover Concealer worked really well!!!  The Sephora associate matched her up with the right color and it was heavy enough to cover up her faded tattoo!  I didn't even use that many layers..maybe like 2 layers!  I'm not sure how it would look on a full on black tribal  tattoo...but this one was successful.  Good purchase!

In Summary:
MAC Prolong Wear Concealer ($20):  FAIL (not meant for tattoo coverage anyway)
Makeup Forever Orange pencil ($17):  FAIL
Ben Nye Concealer Wheel ($18):  SEMI-FAIL (would be a success if it were the right color)
Makeup Forever concealer pencil (US$18):  FAIL
Makeup Forever Full Cover Concealer (US$30):  SUCCESS! (on a faded tattoo..and my guess, probably good on a tribal black tattoo too after a few layers!)

Check out this other blog for some other top tattoo concealers:
http://thingsfestive.blogspot.com/2010/04/tattoo-concealer-which-provides-best.html