Nicole Kidman and Uma Thurman both usually look impeccable and take beautiful photographs. Nicole is always perfect, to the point of occasionally looking shellacked. Uma’s beauty style is more grounded and natural. And yet they were both recently snapped at events looking, um, less than perfect.

Both had patchy white powder visible all over their faces, but concentrated around the nose and eyes. Of course the cocaine jokes were thrown carelessly around the internet after these pictures surfaced, but it was obviously a make-up malfunction.

In the interest of preventing such a horrible thing from ever happening again, I contacted a few make-up artists to get their take on the powdery disaster.

Lorin Cole, a celebrity make-up artist and author of The Complete Book of Make-up, and Khush Singh, who has done editorial, print, and Bollywood make-up work, weighed in. Both gave some ideas for why this might have happened and offered tips for how to prevent the “I-just-stuck-my-head-in-a-bowl-of-powdered-doughnuts” look.

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