After Mandy Moore accidentally slammed a shower door handle into her eye she posted a picture of her knarly bruise to instagram with the following caption. “How does a girl get rid of a black eye pronto?” Accidents, injuries, surgery, even capillaries that spontaneously pop around the eye area can all lead to a dreaded black and blue bruise. A black eye isn’t something you deal with everyday and concealing one can be challenging.

The skin around your eye is extremely delicate making bruises in this area look even more pronounced. Most black eyes will heal on their own within a few days, but there are a fews things you can do to help speed up the recovery process up. The best thing you can do to prevent swelling and deep bruising is to ice the injury immediately, but avoid putting too much pressure directly on your eyeball. Ice your black eye for about 15 minutes at a time every hour for the first 24 hours.

You’ll also want to sleep with your head elevated for a few day until the bruise has faded. Double up your pillows to keep your head propped up higher at night to help the swelling go down. Applying an herbal salve like arnica can help the color of your bruise fade faster. Arnica relaxes the blood vessels around the eye area so that they are reabsorbed into the bloodstream faster.

Foundation pallete Leaf TV

Once you’re ready to cover your black eye with makeup read these concealing tips first. Piling on your usual foundation can help cover up the bruise, but using green, yellow, and even lavender concealer as a base first will make that black and blue even harder to spot. Here’s how to cover up a black eye with makeup:

1. Wash and cleanse your face gently.
2. Apply a face serum or moisturizer.
3. Gently apply arnica to the bruise and let it soak in.
4. Use yellow concealer to cover up areas that are bruised blue and purple.
5. Use green concealer to cover up areas with reddish tones.
6. Use lavender concealer to cover up areas yellow or brown tones.
7. Next apply a liquid concealer that matches your regular skin tone all over you face including on top of the areas you covered up with the other colors.
8. Blend with a makeup brush to smooth all of the tones together.
9. Wait a few minutes and then brush a setting powder on top to set the concealer.
10. If need to conceal the black eye more, you can use your fingertips to apply more of the yellow, green, and lavender concealer again throughout the day for touch ups.

Infalliable Total Cover Up Loreal Paris

Loreal Paris’s Infalliable Total Cover Up is a great kit that incorporates all the concealer colors you need to cover up a black eye.