Beauty Information Sharing: Best Makeup Tricks After a Rhinoplasty

This is an information sharing only not review. The nose is a very sensitive part of the face, so it can swell rapidly when it is injured. This is especially common after a rhinoplasty surgery. Many people find that their nose can remain swollen for a long time following a rhinoplasty. If you are not interested in walking around with a swollen nose, you may want to consider applying makeup to the area. Makeup can be used to create a few optical illusions that minimize swelling. Whether you are recovering from a rhinoplasty or just need to hide a little swelling, these tips will help you to camouflage a swollen nose with makeup.

How Soon Can You Start Wearing Makeup After a Rhinoplasty?

In the first few days after your rhinoplasty, you should not wear makeup anywhere on the face because you need to be treating the skin as gently as possible while it heals. After about three days, you should be able to start applying makeup around the chin, forehead, eyes, and cheeks. Keep in mind that at first there will be a splint over your nose to protect the results, so you will not even be able to apply makeup to the nose while the splint is on. The splint is normally removed after about a week.

Once the splint is removed and it has been about a week since your surgery, you can usually start wearing makeup on the nose. You should avoid placing makeup anywhere near the sutures, and avoid using makeup, toners, or cleansers with harsh ingredients. To avoid disturbing the healing process, always use a very light hand when applying or removing makeup.

Tips for Hiding Nose Discolouration With Makeup

Swelling is far more noticeable when your face is also looking bruised, reddened, and discoloured. To hide discolouration properly, you need to use a color correcting concealer under your normal makeup. Use yellow concealer for a purple bruise, green concealer for a red bruise, and peach concealer for a yellow bruise. A green color corrector will also help to cover up reddened areas of swelling because applying a complementary color over the bruise will help to cancel it out. At first, the unusual shade of concealer will be noticeable, but do not worry. Once you apply a skin toned concealer over it, the colorful concealer will not be noticeable.

Tips for Contouring Nose to Minimize Swelling

After you have created an even skin tone, it is time to contour your nose. You will need concealer, cream foundation, or powder foundation in a shade lighter and a shade darker than your skin tone. The darker contour shade should be cool toned instead of being a reddish brown. The main thing to keep in mind with contouring is that you place darker colors on areas you want to make less noticeable and lighter shades on the areas you want to stand out.

Avoid doing thick, vertical stripes down your nose because this will look obvious and unnatural. Instead, use the darker contour shade to draw a line along either side of the nose that is gently curved inwards. Place this line so that it is on top of the swollen areas on your nose bridge and makes the nose bridge appear thinner. 

Further hide swelling along the tip by placing a thin line of your contour shade in a v shape right above your nostrils. Apply the light shade in a straight line along the middle of your nose bridge, and if the tip of your nose is not swollen, place a small dot there to unify the look. You then need to blend the dark and light shades softly to make them look more natural. Your final step will be setting it with a powder to keep it from smudging.

More Makeup Tricks for Hiding Swelling

Contouring is not the only way to minimize swelling on your nose. You can also apply makeup to other regions of your face to make your nose size appear more balanced. Start by making your eyebrows slightly closer together when your ill in your brows. The reduced space between your brows makes your nose appear slimmer instantly. Even if you do not have dark circles under your eyes, apply a lighter shade of concealer or highlighter in a V shaped area beneath the eyes. This brings the mid face area forward, so the nose does not appear to be sticking out as much.

Another option is using makeup to distract from the swelling. A dark, dramatic eyeshadow look can camouflage some dark bruising, and it draws the eye away from your nose. A bold lip look with plenty of bright colors can have a similar effect.

How Long Will You Need to Be Covering Rhinoplasty Swelling?

Each patient is different because the body heals at different rates and different rhinoplasty techniques can result in different amounts of swelling. Generally, a person will find that it takes two to three weeks for obvious swelling and discoloration to fade. After the immediate swelling fades, the nose will look normal to the average observer, but there will actually be some swelling that takes months to fade. It may be up to four months before the final results of your rhinoplasty are actually visible.

If you are curious about rhinoplasty recovery, feel free to speak to Dr. Andrew Frankel. Dr. Frankel is board certified in both Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery and Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery (Ear Nose and Throat). He is a plastic surgeon who has a great deal of experience performing minimally invasive rhinoplasty in Beverly Hills, CA.