All Eyes On Her

I’ve been reading cult reviews of Urban Decay’s Primer Potion for ages, and I finally broke down and impulse-bought some at Sephora a month ago.

I wanted to really give it a good run before I reviewed it, but my goodness has it earned its stripes! Or rather, lack thereof — I’ve NEVER found an eye shadow base that actually prevented that mid-lid crease line before. (They all say they will, but most don’t.) Sadly, I can’t show you amazing pics of my shadow holding up, because I don’t have a camera that really captures it well — you’ll have to trust me for now! I’ll upload a pic once we get a real camera.

I only have a couple problems incorporating this new product. First of all, if you’ve been using a product like Retin-A around your brow bone like I have*, it can highlight any flaky patches you may be going through.

Secondly, it really grips your shadow, which means you have to be much more precise about application — I find that it’s a lot harder to blend shades with a coat of Primer Potion on, so no more sloppy half-awake shadow jobs!

These aren’t big issues — I just use it up to and slightly above my crease, avoiding my brow bone. And I think it’s actually trained me in better applications techniques for my shadows!

And thankfully, I had come across buzz in the beauty blogosphere about how to remove all the excess product from the adorable but poorly-designed container. Clumps of Mascara writer Brittany has laid out a helpful how-to here, complete with pictures to guide you.

Being an amateur cosmetics formulator myself, I’m always über-curious about ingredients. So of course I examined the label on this baby, to try and figure out what made it so excellent and effective. I must say, the ingredients list kind of shocked me! Of the first six ingredients, the only one I recognized was ‘talc’. And I’ve been reading labels compulsively since I was twelve years old.

This stuff contains some weird chemicals, but they certainly do the trick! When something is this effective, even I have to put aside my toxicity concerns and just go with it. My lids have never looked better!

*Normally, acid products are not recommended for use around the eye area. I have specific guidance from my dermatologist about using Retin-A in this area to help combat milia, but you should always consult with a derm before using prescription topicals in a non-sanctioned way!