Got shaky hands? Here are five solutions to common beauty accidents

Admittedly, I’m a naturally clumsy person and pretty much everyone who knows me can share a story or two about how klutzy I can be. As a result, I’ve had more than my fair share of beauty boo-boos: from dropping a glass bottle of tester foundation at the malls, to accidentally pulling out all my eyelashes with a cheap curler! I had to fake my lashes by drawing them on with a pen liner for weeks until they grew back, and that’s definitely the worst mess I’ve been in so far.

I still make a lot of other smaller mistakes every day though, so if you have butterfingers like I do, here’s a quick guide to avoiding total beauty mayhem and how to deal when they do happen.

Your complete lack of drawing skills are painfully obvious in your mismatched eyeliner wings

Instead of trying to remedy the situation by drawing a little more on each side until you end up looking like a raccoon, remove the lines you’ve drawn and start afresh. Grab some adhesive tape and stick it to the back of your hand a few times to make it less sticky before carefully placing a piece at the corner of each eye. You can move it around until you feel satisfied with the placement; this will serve as your outline! 

Now you can just run your liquid or gel eyeliner along the edge of the tape, doing your best to make the length and thickness of each wing as uniform as possible. Continue lining the rest of your eye then gently peel off the tape when you’re done. If you still make a few mistakes or want to sharpen the definition, just apply a bit of concealer!

After perfectly blending your eyeshadow, your unsteady hands land some eyeliner or mascara on your masterpiece

Before you cry and ruin the rest, calm down and remember that this is salvageable without having to redo your whole look. Grab your trusty concealer and use a clean cotton bud to pick up a bit of product. Warm it up a bit at the back of your hand before gently patting concealer just right over the stray eyeliner or smudged mascara. Do not blend! This basically erases the error and allows you to rebuild your base eye makeup only on a specific portion of your eyelid so you don’t have to touch anything else. When set, you can just apply a bit more eyeshadow on that area. 

If your hands are shaky, try resting your elbow on a level surface whenever you apply eyeliner your aim steady. For mascara, you can place a business card or even a spoon right behind your lashes to keep the wand from landing on your skin.

You’re not trying to eat it but lipstick keeps getting on your teeth

When we apply lipstick, we usually cover all bases, even the innermost part of our lips. If you have a tendency to over-apply or happen to be wearing a particularly slippery lipstick formula though, you can get some of that on your teeth without even knowing. To prevent any unsightly vampire-like moments, apply your lipstick as normal then place a (clean!) finger in your mouth. When you pull it out, the excess lipstick should stick to your finger instead of getting on your teeth but it’s a good idea to still check your teeth from time totime. Repeat this process as needed if your teeth continue to get lipstick stains.

You applied foundation before putting your clothes on and now it’s on your shirt

If you pulled on a shirt after application or apply foundation down to your neck, getting makeup on your clothes is bound to happen. While you can just change into something else, you may risk transferring makeup onto more clothing and it’s a good idea to remove the stains as soon as possible.

Don’t rub it with water as it may cause the stain to spread and set! Instead use something that’s actually designed to breakdown these kinds of formula: makeup remover wipes! Simply dab or even rub it over the stain until the discoloration is removed. You can cut the sheet in two and save the other half for cleaning your face later on. You may also use micellar water on a cotton pad to get the same effect.

You reach for something in your vanity and accidentally topple your open liquid foundation over, spilling the product

It’s a normal instinct for us to want to save the spilled product, just as we would fix our broken palettes, especially if the product was expensive. Unfortunately, the spilled liquid has already been contaminated, no matter how clean the surface it spilled on may seem.

If you really really want to save the product regardless, don’t add the salvaged product back into the original bottle with its remaining contents. Place it instead into a separate clean container so you don’t end up contaminating the entire batch.

Warning: if the spill occurred as a result of breakage, don’t try to save the liquid anymore! Especially in the case of broken glass packaging, small shards may have mixed with the spilled product so this is no longer safe to use. Let it go (into the trash bin) and take care to be more conscientious next time!

Do you have any other hacks for clumsy girls like me? Share your best tips in the comments below!