This is an excerpt from Please Like Me, the BuzzFeed News newsletter about influencers and internet culture. You can sign up here. In our new column, Social Media Made Me Do It, we try a new trend, product, or tip from the feed.
There are always a number of mildly controversial makeup trends that go viral online, whether that be the TikTok trend of putting on eyeliner and then washing it off to create a smudged look, or more out-there looks like doing M&M eyeshadow, as shared by formerly incarcerated women.
One of the most recent recognizable makeup hacks is influencer Meredith Duxbury’s foundation trick, which involves smearing 10 pumps — yes, double-digits pumps’ worth — of foundation on your face.
With 17.8 million followers, Duxbury has made a name for herself on TikTok with this technique, which she told Allure that she created in college. The idea around this makeup trend is that you smear a lot of foundation on your face and rub it in like moisturizer with your hands. So I gave it my best shot.
Looking at the sheer amount of foundation on my hand, I could not remember a time when I used this much makeup. Not when I was doing theater in school, not for a night out, ever. I’m no makeup expert, but I followed Duxbury’s tutorial, applying it with the back of a makeup brush and using my fingers to blend it. Maybe it was this particular foundation, but the rubbing motion was not doing it and kept making everything look patchy, so I had to break out a face brush in order to get the product to settle properly.
It felt like my pores were screaming. I haven’t had this much makeup on in a long time, and I was stumbling around like the sensation of weight on my face was blinding me. This much foundation basically means you have to break out a full glam to balance it out, so I found the most dramatic products I own (the biggest lashes, the darkest lipstick, the most obvious contour) and just started slapping them on.
The amount just feels unnecessary — and makes no economic sense. The benefit of using a ton of base makeup is that you essentially erase your face and can recarve out your features, but for a night out, it’s simply not worth it. Maybe if you’re an Olympic figure skater, or making your drag debut. But I felt uncomfortable and missed my face. I used seven rounds of micellar water to get all the makeup off and then deep cleaned my apartment. But the photograph looked pretty good.