How to make makeup last

The T-zone produces oil, the under-eye area moves constantly, and lips lose product to eating and drinking. Three different problems with three different answers.

That means one universal fix — more powder, usually — cannot help all three. Powder helps the T-zone and actively harms the under-eye area, which is why applying it everywhere makes things worse.

These five together achieve more than swapping any single product for a more expensive one.

• Prepare the skin, and wait five minutes
• Thin layers instead of thick — two thin ones hold longer than one heavy one
• Powder in the T-zone only
• Lips in layers: liner, colour, blot, second coat
• Setting spray last, from 20 to 30 cm

Setting spray is a final layer and it preserves what was built correctly. It cannot correct a wrong order or a wrong product.

If makeup slides after two hours despite the spray, the problem is almost always preparation: the skin was not moisturised, or the moisturiser had not absorbed before the base went on.

In a Georgian summer, and far more on the coast, humidity is what defeats a base. In humid air skin releases more moisture and product travels with it.

In those conditions the rule runs against instinct: less product lasts longer. Cutting back on cream layers and switching to humidity-resistant formulas achieves more than adding another layer.

Two things cover touch-ups through a whole day: paper tissues and a small amount of powder. A third if your lip is strong — the lip product itself.

What you do not need in your bag: foundation and concealer. Adding those mid-day almost always creates patches, because they go onto an existing layer rather than onto skin.