College #2: Basic Tattoo Covering

In college we had to a tattoo covering project as part of our basic makeup unit.  Unfortunately it is only a very small section whereas it could easily be a while unit in itself!  So this is just a very basic demonstration of how to cover a plain black tattoo.

You will need:

- Cleanser
- Heavy duty concealer: I used a mini Dermacolor palette in Fair
- Fine translucent powder
- A small brush i.e. eyeliner or lip
- Powder puff
- A big fluffy brush
- Cotton pads

I don't have any tattoos so I used my friend Laura to model for me as she has a black butterfly on her back.

• I started off by cleansing the area.
• Using a small brush I went over the black using D32.
• This is the first layer of D32 on the tattoo.  I have left the smaller wing bare for comparison.
• I then pressed a translucent powder onto it with a puff and removed any excess with a fluffy brush.
• I repeated the last two steps to build up D32 into two layers.

As you can see D32 is a reddish colour, this puts that tone back into the black which means using skin colours over the top will hide the tattoo much more easily.

• Next I moved onto concealing the whole thing. I matched Laura’s skin tone using a combination of D406 and D1W and applied it over D32.
• I powdered this layer to set it.
• Finally I touched up any areas which needed extra coverage.
• One last layer of powder to set it all into place.

The final effect

Before and after

This was only the 3rd time I had tried tattoo covering as I didn't have anyone to practice on in between college and doing this one for the project!  However, I am pleased with the outcome but next time I will try to blend the edges of each layer in more as I am doing it.  Dermacolor is quite fast drying and makes blending later on very difficult.

Being able to do this perfectly would be a fantastic skill, there are probably quite a lot of woman out there who would want visible tattoos covered up for their wedding!

<3