Why "Baking" Your Makeup Is the Smartest Thing You Could Be Doing to Your Face

You're already familiar with contouring and are wrapping your head around strobing, but now "baking," or "cooking" your makeup is making itself a part of the mix, cropping up on YouTube tutorials everywhere.

The term, which has been used in the drag community for years, refers to letting translucent powder sit on your face for five to 10 minutes, which allows the heat from your face to set your base foundation and concealer, and then dusting it off your face, leaving you with a creaseless, flawless finish. (Kim Kardashian's makeup artist Mario Dedivanovic uses it on her so you know it's legit.)

Here's how you too can pull off poreless, picture-perfect skin and brighten your eye area while you're at it:

1. Hydrate your eye area. Apply eye cream around your eye area to hydrate your skin and plump it up, minimizing the appearance of any fine lines or creases.

2. Apply a thick concealer under your eyes. While concealer usually contains oils and has a tendency to crease, it won't if it's set right. Apply it upward from the apples of your cheeks toward your temples all the way underneath your eye. Then, blend it in with a damp makeup sponge.

3. Coat on more concealer. At this point, you might be thinking, "This is a shit ton of makeup," and yes, it is. So, you can skip this step and still get great results, but for lasting power, a sheer second coat can lock in the first formula. After you apply the second layer of concealer on, blend it in again with your damp makeup sponge. Make sure to cover and smooth out all the creases before setting your concealer in the next step.

4. Dust on translucent powder. Use a fluffy eyeshadow brush to apply translucent powder over the entire patch of concealer to set the base makeup.

5. Now, "bake" or "cook" your makeup. Use a wedge sponge and dampen it with a setting spray, like MAC Cosmetics Prep+Prime Fix+. Then, dip the wedge into the translucent powder you used in step four to pack the loose powder generously over the area where you applied the concealer. Leave the powder on for five to 10 minutes.

6. Dust it off. Using the same fluffy eyeshadow brush from step four and a pressed powder, swirl the fluffy eyeshadow brush over the formula and dust away the powder as you add more coverage to blend any harsh edges.

Boom, you're baked.

For the complete tutorial, watch vlogger and makeup artist Heidi Hamoud bake her face right in front of your eyes!

By Carly Cardellino

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