Tarte Concealer Belongs to a Founder Who Walked Away From a PhD

Tarte Concealer Belongs to a Founder Who Walked Away From a PhD

Maureen Kelly left a psychology PhD program to start Tarte in a New York apartment, and Shape Tape is the Tarte concealer that made the brand a name. This edit follows the Shape Tape and Maracuja families, then sets them next to concealers from Kosas, Saie, Hourglass, Yves Saint Laurent, NARS and Rare Beauty.

Maureen Kelly started Tarte in 1999 from a one-bedroom apartment in New York, after leaving a clinical psychology PhD program at Columbia. She has said she began because of her own cystic acne and wanted makeup that was good for skin and also worked. The first product was a cheek stain, and the brand reached Sephora in 2003. Shape Tape launched in 2016 and went viral, which is how a brand that began with a cheek stain became the Tarte concealer everyone asks for by name. It is a full coverage concealer, matte and waterproof, and Tarte says it wears up to 16 hours and suits oily or combination skin best. Kelly has said she gives makeup about five minutes in the morning, and she designed the line for people like her. Grid one is the family. The minis are the same idea in a smaller tube, the hydrating one has a built-in eye cream and is made for dry skin, and the Color Corrector evens the look of dark spots and redness. Around them sit the Shape Tape blurring concealer stick, face tape foundation, the creaseless loose setting powder and the buffer foundation brush. The full-size hydrating Shape Tape is the one for dry skin, the Amazonian clay foundation is the matte base I would pair with it, the CC undereye corrector is the second color corrector, and Life Lock sets the whole thing. Further down the grid are the Shape Tape Radiant concealer, the Maracuja corrector, the CC tinted serum, BB Blur, the blur and Quickie brushes and the Face Tape primer, so the whole base can come from one shelf.

Twelve boxes on a pale grey page, one for each product in this edit, each with its brand and name printed below: Tarte Shape Tape Full Coverage Matte Concealer, Tarte Mini Shape Tape Full Coverage Matte Concealer, Tarte Mini Shape Tape Hydrating Full Coverage Creamy Concealer, Tarte Shape Tape Full Coverage Hydrating Color Corrector, Tarte Maracuja Creaseless Creamy Liquid Concealer, Tarte Mini Maracuja Creaseless Creamy Liquid Concealer, Tarte Mini Maracuja Creaseless Full Coverage Radiant Undereye Concealer, Tarte Angled Seamless Finish Concealer Paw Brush, Kosas Revealer Super Creamy + Brightening Concealer with Caffeine and Hyaluronic Acid, Saie Hydrabeam Brightening + Hydrating Under Eye Concealer, Hourglass Vanish Airbrush Concealer and Yves Saint Laurent Touche Éclat All-Over Brightening Pen Concealer.
Tarte concealer

Shape Tape and the base around it

Maracuja and the brush

Maracuja is the passion fruit oil Tarte has built formulas around since 2011. The three concealers in grid two share the word creaseless, and each is a creamy under eye concealer for smoother, brighter looking under-eyes. The last of them is vegan and full coverage, with a new applicator Tarte calls foolproof and travel-friendly, and the minis are the same formulas for a bag. The Angled Paw Brush applies with tapping or sweeping, for coverage you can adjust. My tip: dot the concealer at the inner corner and the outer edge, then tap with the brush rather than dragging. Dragging is what pushes product into fine lines.

Three Maracuja concealers and a brush

Other labels, other ideas

Grid three is where I let other labels in. Kosas was founded in Los Angeles in 2015 by Sheena Yaitanes, who started at her kitchen table, and Revealer came from her own experience of makeup making sensitive, acne-prone skin worse. It is formulated with caffeine, arnica, panthenol, hyaluronic acid and peptides. Saie grew from Laney Crowell's blog, The Moment, and Hydrabeam is a whipped gel-cream with squalane and lighter coverage than the rest of this edit, so it brightens more than it covers. Hourglass was founded by Carisa Janes in 2004, and Vanish Airbrush, launched in 2020, is a waterproof liquid with microspherical powders and up to 16 hours of wear. Yves Saint Laurent's Touche Éclat has the best origin: in 1992 Terry de Gunzburg put her own hand-mixed formula into a click pen after a supplier mistakenly sent a brush-tipped one. NARS, Rare Beauty, MAKE UP FOR EVER, Too Faced, Charlotte Tilbury, Dior, Fenty Beauty and Tower 28 are the other eight I would line up beside Shape Tape. Tower 28's Swipe serum concealer is the lightest of them, a good match for the rested days. What I would skip is asking Hydrabeam to do the job of Shape Tape. Use it to wake up the eye area and leave the heavy lifting to the others.

Concealers from other brands

Choosing where to begin

If I had to pick where to begin, I would go by skin. The matte Shape Tape suits oily or combination skin, the hydrating one is meant for dry skin, and something lighter from grid three is for the days you want to look rested rather than covered. Kelly's brand is a good reminder that a category can be won by one very specific product. Keep the brush nearby. If you want to keep browsing, I also put together Tarte CC Undereye Corrector and Its Concealer Family and Tarte Shape Tape Creamy Concealer.