No one has taught us to conceal, bake and brighten quite like Kim Kardashian. While the makeup technique is known to have originated from drag culture and been appropriated by modern makeup artists, the now-makeup mogul was documenting her affinity for the process even prior to her own cosmetics line.
In a recently unearthed digital camera selfie from presumably the late 00s, we see Kim in the early stages of her conceal, bake, brightening experimentation (you know, before she literally trademarked the phrase). Are you ready?
The blush. The brown-tinged red gloss. The contour. This has all the makings of the Kim Kardashian-West we know and love. Hopefully this makes you feel better about your extraordinarily light under-eye concealer of years past, or other makeup mistakes that we would rather flay ourselves than relive. I know I do.
Also, for those miraculously unfamiliar with Kim’s now famous trick, to conceal, bake and brighten is to apply concealer, haphazardly set that concealer with loose powder before you blend it in with the rest of your makeup before highlighting (hence the brighten). If you want to emulate Kim Kardashian’s more recent takes on the CBB technique, you can learn from the below video.
Good luck out there!