I’m the queen of putting on my makeup in weird places with a time crunch. I am quite literally (not literally) always doing my makeup on the go. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve done my eyebrows in the passenger seat of my boyfriend’s manual Honda Civic SI, lurching around as he shifts gears, waiting to pass the next streetlight to make sure my arches are even. Or how many times I’ve spontaneously decided to go out, racing to complete my winged eyeliner despite being in a parking garage with zero lighting. In the club bathroom, I’m the person who’s using their lipstick as blush while gripping a tube of mascara between their teeth. At a festival, I am constantly beleaguered by my ADHD-fueled time blindness, racing to get ready in my tent before we need to leave, using the mirror that I smuggled in to make sure that my glitter is glittering properly. I even gave a class to my WIRED colleagues on how to get ready in a time crunch. I am, for better or for worse, that girl.
So it makes sense that my party goblin ways would lead to me testing the ultimate in That Girl innovation. I’m talking about lighted makeup mirrors. They shine a light on your face so you can see it from all angles (and in some cases, they have magnification that will show you every single pore, whether or not you want to see it). You’ll be able to use the power of Seeing Correctly to ensure a flawless finish, whether you’re going with heavy contour, a smoky cut crease like it’s 2016 again, or you simply want to make sure your overlined lips aren’t too obvious. These are my favorites.
Be sure to check out our many other guides including the Best Hair Straighteners, the Best Curling Irons, and the Best Beauty Subscription Boxes.
About CRI (Color Rendering Index)
Some lighted makeup mirrors feature specific CRI (Color Rendering Index) measurements. It’s a way to measure how closely artificial light can mimic natural light (like daylight). The scale goes from 0 to 100, with 100 being the perfect indication that colors appear the same as they would in natural sunlight. I think this is a nice thing to know about, but ultimately, your environment will affect your makeup application more than a mirror’s CRI score (if listed). Placing your lighted makeup mirror in front of a window or in a well-lit area will give you just as good of an idea of how your makeup looks in any room. Once my makeup is finished, I usually cycle through any mirror’s available lighting schemes to ensure it looks good in all of them. So, in a nutshell, a high CRI is a good indication of a mirror’s color accuracy, but it’s not the only thing you need to care about.
I completed my go-to makeup look (sparkly nude eyeshadow, winged liner, lots of blush and highlight, penciled-in brows, heavy mascara) using each of these mirrors at least twice—once in a dark environment, and once in natural daylight. I tested each lighting mode and fully cycled through every battery at least once.
