Does TikTok's Bronzer-As-Undereye-Concealer Hack Work?

TikTok loves serving us a barrage of creative makeup hacks that have seemingly miraculous results. Unfortunately, not all of these makeup tips bring about good results. One strange hack that has recently gone viral has left lots of folks skeptical: bronzer as an undereye concealer.

Popularized by TikTok users such as @sierracannon, the beauty method involves placing bronzer around your eyes where you normally would put concealer. Using bronzer as an undereye concealer sounds like a recipe for weird orange raccoon eyes, so you may be surprised to hear that this TikTok hack gets the makeup artist's seal of approval.

Depending on the tone of your bronzer, it may be an ideal color for covering dark circles around your eyes. Dark circles tend to have blue or purple undertones, which are the opposite of the warm orange shades that bronzers typically come in, giving you the perfect neutralizing hue. But before you throw out all your concealers, there are a few caveats to keep in mind when understanding how the bronzer-as-undereye-concealer hack works.

Bronzer can work as a concealer because it can have the same effect as an orange or peach color corrector, canceling out the blue shades in your undereye circles. @Katiejanehughes gives a perfect explanation for this in a TikTok clip, showing how a warm bronzer counteracts the cool tone around your eyes. In the demonstration, the bronzer is followed up with a concealer for a natural look, with the concealer getting gently blended out without disrupting the bronzer underneath.

As you can see from the video, bronzer really does work effectively as an undereye color corrector. However, if you want to try this hack at home, you need to make sure you have the right bronzer. Your bronzer should be a subtle orange hue — anything too bright or glowy will look strange around your eyes. You can also make an overly orange-toned bronzer work by mixing in a small amount of red blush.

And of course, be sure to use bronzer, and not a contour color, since contour shades are cool and dark and would only exacerbate your undereye circles. If you still want your undereye area to have a bright look to them, choose a concealer with a particularly strong brightening effect to counterbalance the deeper tone of the bronzer.

To really master color-correcting makeup, you need to go back to color theory. The color theory makeup trend is all about knowing where colors are located on the color wheel and how they interact with each other. In the case of this bronzer hack, orange is the opposite of blue, hence bluish undereye circles get concealed. Since everyone's skin is different, you may need a different color-correcting strategy than using bronzer as a concealer.

Folks that have a greener tone to their undereye circles may get better results by putting pink or red blush under their eyes instead of bronzer. Likewise, if you have red discoloration on your face, a green color corrector is your best friend. No matter what color corrector you need, be sure to use a shade that matches your skin's depth. For instance, if you want to use bronzer as a color corrector, get a deep bronzer shade if you have dark skin and a lighter bronzer shade if you have fair skin.

Color-correcting tricks like this bronzer-as-undereye-concealer hack can feel like makeup magic, but all of these tips rely on the same simple principle of neutralizing unwanted color tones. When you understand how that works, you can find all kinds of creative ways to experiment with your makeup.