How to Use Pigments

how to use pigmentsHow to Use Pigments

After the giveaway announced by Tatjana, I am sure all the ladies on IMBB must be drooling over all the stuff in the giveaway and specifically the pigment stacks.

Well, pigments are basically responsible for the color of your entire make up; hence they deserve some recognition or simply a post on IMBB. Well, Rati does enough justice to it, by using them and owning them and also using the word pigment, pigmented, pigments regularly all over the blog! 😛

Ok back to the article. To start off with, MAC owns the most famous line of pigments in 31 different shades. And Rati must be having like 29 of them. 😛

Pigments basically mean color and color correlates to emotions. Let me give you few examples on this.

Red- love, action, energy, lust.
Orange- warmth, assertiveness, vitality
Yellow- Life and power
Blue- peace, coolness, calm
Green- Nature, freshness and youth
Purple- romance, royalty
Pink- ‘girls’ lol… Sweetness, innocence

You can combine shades of pigments to have custom pigments for yourself. Use the color wheel for help.
eye pigments
Top 10 MAC pigments:
• Reflects antique gold
• Bright Fuchsia
• Grape
• Pure white
• Platinum
• Emerald green
• Copper sparkle
• Deep blue green
• Mutiny
• Melon

Pigments can accentuate and enhance your make up and similarly ruin your whole look too, hence one must use pigments carefully and in the right way. You can use pigments as highlighting powder, bronzers, blush or contouring powder.

How to Use Pigments

The right way and place to use pigments:

The Face

Pigments can be used as a highlighter just as it can be used as a bronzer.

Take dry pigment and brush it below or above your brow bone, cheekbones, nose center, cupids bow, chin and forehead.

You can mix pigments with your foundation too, for that glowy even color tone on the face.

Customize your old boring foundation to a new one, be it a dewy or crazy shade.

Remember:
• Always use light pigment shades on the face to grab all the attention.
• Cross your heart and promise me that you will never ever forget to prep your face with a primer and a foundation before using pigments since this will help in showing off the color in a better way. 🙂

The Eyes

Pigments being exceedingly reduced cosmetic powders are known for proffering intense color payoff when used with an eyeshadow, and people like Rati exploit them to their extreme potential, hmph.

Pigments accentuate the eye make up greatly. Mixing pigments with your regular shade or simply applying them gives a great impact to your eye make up.

Take any lotion or cream, moisturizing cream shall help. Dip your angled brush into the lotion and take some lotion on the brush. In a small container or lid possibly mix it with a bit of pigment and apply it, like a creamy eye shadow. This helps in keeping the eye make up on your lids for hours together.
You can even use the remnant amalgamation of lotion and pigment as eyeliner to line your eyes both below and above. You can even dampen the brush in water for using pigments as eyeliners.Use your regular eye shadow to produce a modest sparkle.

Pigments can also be used a eyebrow fillers, but always use a shade which in 1 to 2 shades lighter than your original brow color. You can use a darker shade of pigment for your night brows.

How can you do this?

Dip a firm angled brush into a pigment and use it for a brow pencil substitute. Apply small strokes to ape the fine hair in the brow.

You can also use pigments with your mascara, you can customize your mascara too. Just mix a pigment of your favorite shade with simple regular mascara and VOILA you are done!

Remember:
• Pigments stay longer when they are used on a good good primer.
• Do not forget to tap off the excessive pigment from the brush before applying.
• Use damp brush to exploit the staying power and vibrancy of the pigment colors.
• The eye area is the most delicate area on your face, hence do not use any and every pigment around them, and check the product information before picking them.
• Zeeba’s gyaan: For special special care for your eyes you can even mix pigments with your eyedrops. 🙂
• Eyeshadows are possibly the safest makeup for amalgamating pigments.

Cheeks

You can use peach and nude pigments as blushes too. I usually apply very minimal quantity of pigments for the blush, like the pigment stuck on the lid is good enough for a blush.

OR

With your ring finger have a touch of pigment on your apples and blend it. Mixing facial moisturizer with a pigment can give you a creamy blush.

If you want a bold and dramatic look, have reds, plums and magentas for pigment blushes.

Bodyuse pigments

Brushing the pigment all over the body gives a great bronzed look. Mix pigment with you regular body spray or lotion for a shimmery shine.

What your legs to appear slender and long?

Blend gold and silver pigments with your body lotion and apply it from your knees to the ankles. The shiny glossy line will make your legs look longer and slender.

Lips

Mix a little pigment with your gloss to give a shiny and colored look to your lips.

You can even hint pigment with your Vaseline and lipbalm. Pigments can also be used to set your lipsticks. All you need to do is after you apply your lipstick, the regular way you do, pat some matching pigment on it. You are open to top it with a gloss or leave it so.

Nails

If you have plain clear nail paint, add a pinch of pigment to it for custom nail paint. 🙂 You are open to experiment with the pigment ratios to custom your nail paints.

Get a pigmented manicure:
For this Dip the nail paint brush directly into the pigment and apply it on your nails.

Hair

Pigments can be added to your hair spray, hair wax, gel or pomade too. If you need those urgent streaks in your hair, pigments are the best option.

Some important tips for using pigments:
• Never forget to prep your face or eyes with a primer before using loose pigments.
• Get done with your eye make up first, so that the rest of the make up is not ruined with the pigment fallout.
• Mind the layers and applications. Pigments pack a lot of color, so be careful pigments can clump too.

This is all about pigments……please post in any queries or doubts in the comment section, I shall do my best to help you out..nahi toh Rati zindabad. 😛

Here’s a video that explains everything beautifully:

Also Read:

MAC Moonlight Night Pigment
How to Choose Eyeshadow Color

IMBB RECOMMENDS

30 thoughts on “How to Use Pigments

  1. :worship: :worship: :worship: :worship: :worship: such an awesomeeeeeeeeeeee article Zeeba…so informative!!! ..and I am not shocked knowing that Rati has 29 pigments!! :smug:

    1. :);….hahahahahah..no i dnt know how many pigments rati owns….dat ws my wild guess…i mean she is always into pigments..pigments and pigments..

  2. fab 1 zeeba…. :jaiho: :jaiho:
    I have d brash n bold pigment…d fuchsia pink 1…wud use it as a blush…dunno how it wud look on my lips :tremble: :tremble:

  3. I love pigments I don’t think eye shadows can really bring out the intensity of the colours as well as pigments can.Thanks Zeeba..it was helpful. :yahoo: :yahoo: :yahoo: :yahoo: :yahoo:

  4. Fantastic article Zeeba… I so wanted a tute like this… I am looking for a magenta pink eye shadow, but the MAC guy told they are out of stock on it but they have pigments in magenta pink… was like.. errrr… i dont know how to use them so lemme just stay away from them 😛
    now this article really helps 🙂

  5. and zeeba quite a lot of top 10 pigments u mentioned above are limited edition…..i desperately wanted reflects antiqued gold pigment…..and emerald green…are they still available….??

  6. THX ZEEBA THx RATI……BUT SOMEBODY MENTIONED ABOVE THAT REFLECTS ANTIQUE GOLD IS GLITTER AND NOT PIGMENT….and rati if i remeber correctly vimi joshi used this glitter wen she did black smokey eyee on anushka manchnada ……..ahhhhhh i so badly want this glitter since i saw that video….

  7. Great post, Zeeba :-* :-* :-*

    One more information about frankenpolishing: Lots of fun to create new colours by mixing pigments into coloured polishes as well. Also: If you want to create a polish colour matching the pigment colour it is good to take a soft pigmentated polish like for example a very sheer white or very sheer pink and so on. Due to the fact that these polishes already hold some pigment it is easier to frankenpolish with them and the small amount of contained pigments helps the new one to stay in fluid condition :-))

    1. Now I know how to use the pigment stacks..I am gonna win tomorrow.. 😛 :struggle: :struggle: :onthephone: :silly: :silly: :silly: :silly: :silly: :silly: :silly: :silly: :idk: :idk: :idk: :idk: :idk: :idk: :idk: :idk: :idk: :idk: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin:

  8. Thats right – and a very nice one as well.
    The Reflects-Glitters have smaller particles than the regular ones. :))

    1. What’s the difference…like glitter and pigment..am just curious…cos I saw this post on another blog…Reflects..but I didn’t know what it was she was talking about…and didn’t want to ask…:D 😀 😀

      1. The Reflects-Glitters are glitters with very tiny particles – the particle size is more like a kind of shimmering dust. The regular MAC glitters have larger particles; I mean they are not huge but bigger than the Reflects particles. You need better fixing mediums for them (f. e. mixing mediums), due to the fact that the particles are larger and so you get fall-offs without fixing them.

        1. There are a few MAC Reflects (like Blackened Red I think) that are not eye safe – so some people recommend using them for your hair or your face or something like that. The reason behind this is that reflects could irritate your eye.

          1. Yea, you find no-eye-safes among regular pigments as well… in that case I use to fix them well 🙂 More difficult with stuff declared as not lip-safe… there you have to be careful. Regarding the stuff you ladies can win today there are no problems about this – all natural :))

  9. grt one Zeeba… I ruined one pigment dibbi i had coz I didnt know how to apply I mixed water in the entire thing..lolzzz
    now i;ll be more careful.

  10. fab video alos… but one question… when he used the mac medium its cosistency actualy came out so stark and poster colour like ..how are u to blend it…. 😐 😐 😐 and more so withe creme shadows or powder? ?:) ?:)
    goshh i reaaly need a video for pigments now….

    1. Neha just pat the pigment paste on your lids, it would kinda dry on its own within seconds. Then take a dry pigment or an eyeshadow on a fluffy brush and go on top of to to erase any harsh edges.

  11. Zeeba….thank you so much for this post……………..I always thought you should mix pigments with sulphuric acid or phenyl O:) O:) O:) O:) O:) Radsu was tellling mix and keep in fridge……..

  12. Okay..thanks Tatjana. This blogger had written “impossible to photograph” so I was totally clueless what Reflects were 😀 😀 😀

    1. Maybe she was talking about one of the transparents.
      From MAC you have regular glitters in usual glitter particle size.
      And then you have two kinds of so-called Reflects glitters:
      Reflects and Reflects transparent.

      The differences:
      1 The particles are tiny and dusty
      2 The transparents mostly look kinda crystal white and sheer in the pot. Depending on the light they reflect a specific colour spectre; f.e. Reflects transparent Teal looks transparent when applied and reflects light in Teal (depending on light incidence it appears different); so it is a just reflection, the product itself looks transparent.
      3 There are also Reflects glitters with higher reflection intensity, f. e. “Reflects very Pink” – they also appear different (light incidence) but reflect the specific spectrum more intensive.

      These different performances allow very stunning looks – you can create everything from just a hint of reflection up to full force glitter “rig”.

      At least all the glitters are very hard to capture on cam since a lot of them cover more than one colour spectrum and on photos you mostly can capture only one.

  13. Oh…I should check with the SA before getting any pigment – whether it is safe for use on eyes or not! Oh and I saw Reflects on Pinch’s blog 😀

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