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How To Reduce the Appearance of Redness on the Face
What causes facial redness? Discover how to help reduce redness on the face with these tips, tricks and recommendations for flushed, inflamed or irritated skin.
- 13th March 2025
- By Charlotte Tilbury
9 minute read
Darlings, redness on the face is a common skin concern that can be experienced by people of all skin tones and skin types. In this guide, I’m sharing my tips and tricks on how to reduce the appearance of redness on the face – discover my best skincare products for minimising the appearance of redness including Charlotte’s Magic Water Cream and Dark Spot Correcting Radiance Recovery Serum for incredible before and after results!
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Why is My Face Red? Causes of Facial Redness
Facial redness can be caused by a variety of environmental and biological factors. Here are some of the common causes that can lead to our skin becoming flushed with redness:
Genetics: Some people are naturally predisposed to facial redness. Our skin tones are made up of a number of different colourations and pigmentations, with some people having prominent red tones in their skin. If your skin is regularly flushed with redness, it’s likely that your skin naturally appears more red than others.
Dry and Sensitive Skin: Dry and sensitive skin types are more prone to experiencing facial redness because of their susceptibility to skin irritation. Dry skin can become itchy and irritable which can lead to redness on the face, and sensitive skin easily becomes inflamed and often experiences redness to a greater degree.
Allergies: Allergic reactions can cause the skin on your face to become red. Allergic reactions can be caused in response to consuming certain foods or applying skincare products with ingredients that you may be allergic to. You can tell when redness is caused by allergies because skin often becomes puffy and swollen.
Emotional Response: Facial redness can be a physical response to experiencing emotions like distress, embarrassment, anger, and anxiety. This form of redness is triggered by our natural bodily response to daily situations and often subsides when the moment has passed.
Body Temperature: Heat from hot weather, central heating, spicy foods and intensive exercise can trigger our inflammatory response and cause redness to appear on the face. Redness from overheating can range from a subtle rosy flush to prickly heat rash depending on temperature and heat sensitivity.
Menopause: When going through the menopause, many people experience hot flushes that can lead to redness on the face. These hot flushes are a result of hormonal imbalances that lead the blood vessels in the skin to dilate and appear red.
Sun Exposure and Sunburn: Exposure to harmful UV rays can damage the veins in your skin, leading to what is known as thread veins or spider veins. These small, broken veins are close to the surface of the skin and appear as visible red lines on the face.
Alcohol: For some people, drinking alcohol leads to their face and cheeks getting visibly flushed. Alcohol flush reaction often occurs when the body has trouble digesting alcohol, leading to a rosy facial flush.
Skin Conditions: If you have conditions like eczema and rosacea that affect your skin, you are much more prone to experiencing facial redness. Skin conditions like these involve symptoms of dryness, irritation and inflammation, all of which can contribute to the emergence of facial redness.
Blemishes and Acne: Breakouts and flare ups of acne trigger the skin’s inflammatory response which cause areas of the face to become red and blotchy. Poking and squeezing at spots can aggravate the skin and can increase and prolong the facial redness associated with acne.
How To Reduce the Appearance of Redness on the Face
Skincare Ingredients that Help to Reduce Redness
When experiencing facial redness, it’s important to use soothing skincare ingredients in your skincare routine. Below are some skincare ingredients to look out for when choosing the best products to help reduce the look of redness on the face.
Beta Glucan
Skincare products infused with Beta Glucans can help to reduce the appearance of facial redness thanks to their skin barrier-strengthening properties. This emollient ingredient is suited to skin that’s experiencing redness, helping to hydrate dry, irritated skin and working to help reinforce a damaged skin barrier to in turn reduce the appearance of associated redness.
Aloe Vera
Known for its soothing properties, aloe vera is suited to irritated skin that’s experiencing redness. This anti-inflammatory ingredient is rich in antioxidants and helps to soothe the skin. It’s a popular choice for helping to revive sunburnt skin and has a similarly calming effect when tackling facial redness. Aloe vera is one of the ingredients in my Magic 8 Matrix of skincare ingredients, and it’s a skin-soothing presence in both of my magic moisturisers: Charlotte’s Magic Cream and Charlotte’s Magic Water Cream.
Niacinamide
The brightening, balancing effects of niacinamide are wonderful for helping to reduce the appearance of facial redness. Not only does niacinamide help to strengthen the skin barrier to increase skin resilience, it also helps to even the look of skin tone which can balance out redness in the skin. To add niacinamide to your skincare routine, reach for Glow Toner, Charlotte’s Magic Serum Crystal Elixir, and NEW! Charlotte’s Magic Water Cream.
Skincare for Facial Redness: Dark Spot Correcting Radiance Recovery Serum
Evening the appearance of your skin tone is easy with my Dark Spot Correcting Radiance Recovery Serum! Not only does this silky-smooth serum target dark spots and hyperpigmentation with laser-like precision, it can also reduce the appearance of redness on your face.
The formula is infused with soothing tranexamic acid which can help to calm redness, as well as Precision-Fade Evenskin™ Technology that specifically targets areas of facial redness and helps to create a brighter, more even-looking tone.
Apply my Dark Spot Correcting Radiance Recovery Serum morning and night to help soothe and neutralise the look of your facial redness and reveal an even-looking complexion with a healthy-looking glow.
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Skincare for Facial Redness: Charlotte’s Magic Water Cream
Darlings, Charlotte’s Magic Water Cream is formulated to visibly reduce the appearance of redness on the face. This ultra-lightweight gel moisturiser is infused with Waterlocking Fusion Technology ™ and niacinamide to hydrate irritated skin and strengthen the skin barrier while giving your face the best, fresh water glow of your life!
To see the benefits for yourself, I recommend applying Charlotte's Magic Water Cream every morning and evening as part of your skincare routine, using my Tilbury Tap technique.
In clinical trials, applying Charlotte’s Magic Water Cream saw redness appear reduced by 100% in just 4 weeks!* Seeing is believing, darlings… just look at the incredible before and after results, below:
How To Reduce Redness on Face Before and Afters: Dark Spot Correcting Radiance Recovery Serum
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My Best Foundation for Redness: Airbrush Flawless Foundation
My full-coverage foundation, Airbrush Flawless Foundation, is designed to create a perfected, stay-all-day makeup look. Applying this natural-matte, science-and-colour foundation allows you to even the look of your complexion and provides instant coverage that feels weightless and doesn’t need to be built up. The formula is also infused with C.T. Defence™ to help defend from environmental pollutants that can irritate the skin and AirCool™ Technology to capture an instant fresh feeling in sweat or humidity – both of which are useful for skin that’s prone to redness.
Tilbury Tip: If you prefer a medium-coverage foundation, reach for your perfect shade of Charlotte’s Beautiful Skin Foundation. The buildable formula can be layered to build up coverage to cover facial redness while maintaining its radiant, skin-like finish.
My Best Concealer for Redness: Magic Away!
Just like magic, my Magic Away! concealer will help to conceal the look of any redness! This full-coverage formula is my magic wand of makeup, gliding onto the skin with its sponge-tip applicator and delivering instant, skin-perfecting coverage! I recommend dotting this liquid concealer into areas where facial redness is the most prominent such as across the cheeks, around the nose, and on the forehead, then blending out the edges to conceal any signs of redness with full, seamless-looking coverage.
Tilbury Tip: Charlotte’s Beautiful Skin Radiant Concealer can also be used to help conceal the look of redness on the face. The formula is effortlessly buildable, making it easy to customise how much concealer you will need when concealing facial redness.
Makeup Powder for Redness: Airbrush Flawless Finish
The coverage you will need to conceal the appearance facial redness will come from your foundation and concealer, but it’s essential to set your base makeup with a light veil of Airbrush Flawless Finish. This award-winning pressed powder adds a little extra coverage to your makeup look while helping your foundation and concealer to wear beautifully throughout the day. It has smoothing and blurring effects that are extremely flattering and will help to diffuse the appearance of any redness that may be peeking through.
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Author Details
Charlotte Tilbury
Founder, President, Chairman and Chief Creative Officer of Charlotte Tilbury Beauty
With over 30 years experience, Charlotte Tilbury MBE is the world's number 1 makeup artist and British beauty entrepreneur. Charlotte established Charlotte Tilbury Beauty in 2013, which is now a record-breaking beauty brand that has won over 400 awards.
