Sims 4 CC Makeup Not Showing? Troubleshooting Guide

The Most Common Reason: You're Looking in the Wrong CAS Section

This is the cause of the problem for a surprisingly large proportion of Simmers who report CC makeup not showing. The Sims 4 CAS system divides makeup and skin-related CC into two separate sections and they are not obviously named or positioned.

Standard makeup CC — eyeshadow, eyeliner, lipstick, lip gloss, blush, contour — appears in the Makeup category in CAS. This is where you'd intuitively look and these items appear alongside EA's own makeup options in the relevant subcategories.

Skin overlay and skin detail CC — face overlays, freckles, beauty marks, nose blush, under-eye details, and 3D eyelashes like Kijiko — appears in the Skin Details section of CAS. This is a completely separate category from Makeup, and Simmers who install an overlay or a freckle CC and then search through the Makeup section will not find it there. Go to Skin Details, which is typically accessible through the face editing panel in CAS.

If you installed 3D eyelash CC like Kijiko and can't find it: it appears specifically in an Eyelashes subcategory within Skin Details — not in Makeup, and not directly in the main Skin Details list depending on your game version. Navigate through Skin Details and look for the dedicated lash slot.

Before troubleshooting anything more complex, confirm you're looking in the right place for the type of CC you installed.

Second Check: Is Custom Content Enabled?

EA's game updates occasionally reset the Custom Content toggle in Game Options without warning. If makeup CC that was previously working has suddenly disappeared, this is one of the first things to check. Go to Game Options → Other and verify "Enable Custom Content and Mods" is checked. If it was unchecked, re-enable it and restart the game. A notification on the main menu confirming custom content was detected tells you it's working.

Third Check: Thumbnail Cache Needs Clearing

The game maintains a thumbnail cache (localthumbcache.package) that stores preview images for all CAS items including CC. If this cache is stale, CC makeup can load correctly in terms of data but not generate its thumbnail preview, causing it to appear as a blank gray square in CAS or not appear in filtered searches.

Fix: close the game, navigate to your Sims 4 root folder (Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 4), delete the file named localthumbcache.package, and relaunch. The game regenerates this file automatically on next launch. First load will take slightly longer than usual while thumbnails are rebuilt. Check CAS afterward.

Fourth Check: File Depth in the Mods Folder

Makeup CC .package files must be in the Mods folder at no more than one subfolder depth. Files nested two or more levels down are silently ignored — no error message, no warning, they just don't load. This catches Simmers who have organized their Mods folder with category-then-creator subfolders (like Mods/Makeup/Creator/file.package — two levels deep and therefore ignored).

Check your folder structure. The valid paths are: Mods/file.package (root level) or Mods/AnySubfolder/file.package (one level deep). Move files up to the correct depth and relaunch.

Fifth Check: Skin Overlay Conflicts

Running two full-face overlays simultaneously is a very common cause of unexpected CAS behavior. When two overlays compete for the same slot, the result can be one of them not displaying, both displaying with visual artifacts, or the CAS panel behaving unexpectedly in the affected slot. Symptoms: an overlay that should appear doesn't, or you can see it selected but it has no visible effect.

Fix: only run one full-face overlay at a time. Check your Sim's current Skin Details selections — if there are two items in the Face Overlay slot, remove one. Targeted skin details (freckles, beauty marks, nose blush) use different slots and can stack freely. The conflict issue is specific to the main overlay slot being double-occupied.

Sixth Check: Slider Conflicts Affecting Makeup Placement

Some makeup CC is placed based on a reference to the default Sim face geometry. When face sliders — particularly eye size, nose shape, and lip size — are pushed to extreme values, the CC makeup texture mapping can be displaced, causing lipstick that extends beyond the lip border, eyeliner that doesn't sit correctly on the eye shape, or blush that appears in the wrong facial zone.

This is not a broken CC issue — it's a geometry mapping limitation. The fix is to moderate slider use in the specific areas where makeup is displacing, or to look for CC from creators who specifically note slider compatibility in their download descriptions. Some creators test their makeup across a range of slider configurations and design the texture mapping to be more flexible. If slider displacement is causing a specific makeup piece to look wrong on an otherwise correct Sim face, check if the creator has released an updated version or look for an alternative from a slider-compatible creator.

Seventh Check: Makeup Not Showing on Specific Skin Tones

Some makeup CC is designed and tested for a limited skin tone range and reads incorrectly on tones outside that range — a lipstick that looks correct on light skin may appear almost invisible on dark skin, or an eyeshadow with visible contrast on medium tones may disappear on darker ones. This is a creator-side limitation rather than a user error.

Fix: check the creator's download page for explicit skin tone compatibility notes. Good creators test across the full skin tone spectrum and note this. If a specific makeup piece only works for a limited tone range and you need it for a different tone, look for an alternative from a creator who explicitly tests for broader compatibility, or check if a community-made recolor for your required tone range exists.

Eighth Check: Makeup Disappeared After a Game Update

EA patches sometimes break makeup CC, particularly updates that change the CAS rendering system or skin detail slot structure. If specific CC makeup stopped working after a recent patch: verify CC is still enabled in settings, clear the cache, and check the original creator's page for an updated version. For CC from inactive creators whose files broke in a patch, Sims 4 Studio (S4S) can sometimes repair the file by re-saving the package against the current game version — S4S documentation covers this process.

Ninth Check: CC Appears in Wrong Outfit Category

Makeup in Sims 4 CAS is applied per outfit slot — Everyday, Formal, Athletic, and so on. If makeup you applied in one outfit category isn't appearing in another, it's not a broken CC issue — the game applies makeup settings per outfit rather than universally. Fix: after setting up makeup in your primary outfit slot, use the Copy Outfit function in CAS (the overlapping squares icon) to duplicate the full look including makeup across other outfit categories.