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.

Read the rest…

I recently became interested in cream and gel eyeliner formulas, after reading some EDS raves about how long-lasting and smudge-proof MAC Fluidline is. And I wound up doing a couple of MUA swaps in which I inherited a MAC Fluidline pot and a Smashbox Cream Eyeliner, so suddenly I had a cheap and easy way to test these babies out. But I was TERRIBLE at applying them! I just couldn’t figure out how to make them go on nicely, even though I consider myself a relatively savvy makeup user.

So I did a little research. The Smashbox description of my newly-received swap item recommended using their #21 Arced Liner Brush, so I checked out that product on their site.

I’d actually never seen a bent brush like this — probably because I’ve never used cream/gel eyeliner before. I picked up a slightly cheaper (but still very high-quality and super-soft) Sephora version, their Professional Platinum Angled Eyeliner Brush #23. It also looks like you can get Bare Escentuals or Benefit versions for cheaper, but I don’t trust those brushes as much as I trust Sephora’s Professional line. (I strongly prefer dense, synthetic brushes that never shed a hair, and Too Faced and Sephora are my go-to brush companies.)

This cracks me up, because I should’ve known the right brush would make all the difference. I could never master those artfully deep-set slightly-smoky triangles you can do on your eyelid, until I got my Too Faced Angled Eye Shadow Brush. And applying mineral powder concealer to blemishes became infinitely easier with my Sephora Professional Concealer Brush #46 and my Everyday Minerals Oval Concealer brush (I alternate them so they have time to dry between applications). I may be a makeup savant, but I’m only beginning to call myself a tool savant. Once I can fully master an eyelash curler without getting that horrible crimp line, I’ll be ready for my certificate.

I’m just loving how my new eyeliners look. They create great definition, without disappearing like a normal eyeliner pencil, and without creating as sharp a line as a liquid liner. (They’re much more forgiving during the application process than liquid liners, too.) I find it a bit more awkward to do my left eye than my right, but I manage okay — the bent shaft of the brush really makes it a lot easier. Now, if only they could make ALL beauty tools so ergonomic — I might never burn myself with my straightening iron again!

I’m all in a tizzy because of a recent natural cosmetics discovery. Liz from EDS tipped me off to a company called 100% Pure, which makes a bunch of delicious-looking stuff, including a whole line of fruit-pigmented cosmetics.

I’ve been wanting to find and/or just launch for myself a line of naturally pigmented cosmetics for years. I’ve long relied on Mama Coco’s Red Hibiscus Lip Rouge as a subtle natural lip color in a super-moisturizing and yummy base — the stuff is pigmented with rose and hibiscus petals. Exquisite, no? But the color isn’t very strong at all, and this is the only pigmented product they make. So I had visions of creating beet-pigmented lip stains and natural concealers and whatnot.

And now I see that 100% Pure has a bunch of lip glosses, plus cheeky stains and even concealers, that are all naturally colored. So fab! I’m going to have to place an order, I can just tell. Bummer that they don’t do stains, since Grant refuses to kiss me when I have any kind of goop on my lips. But still, a girl can gloss it up from time to time!

I also love that they do some shimmery versions and some not-so-shimmery. For some reason, lately I’m just not into shimmery lip stuff AT ALL, so I like having shiny-but-not-sparkly options. I imagine I’ll sample a few lip colors, plus one cheeky and one concealer (in my first order, hehe). Liz also mentioned a lovely-sounding body butter, and I see more than a couple non-cosmetics products that caught my eye, including a caffeine-infused eye cream — could this be the end of my search!?

Yet another bonus is that they have a free shipping minimum of $50. Since I adore Internet shopping but hate knowing I’m wasting money on shipping costs, I’m always happy when a place offers a free shipping minimum, especially when it’s an affordable one. I can’t wait to give these guys a try — I’ll definitely update with my reactions. Fruit-tastic!

Makeup Alley is a skincare and makeup discussion board similar to the Essential Day Spa Forum, but because I discovered MUA second, I’ve never really participated in their forums.

However, they have a couple of fabulous features that EDS does not — namely, a wishlist function, and a swap function. These two work in conjunction with each other — you place items you’re yearning to try (or just stock up on) on your wishlist, and you also post items you’re happy to get rid of on your swap list. People take a look at your swap list, and offer to trade you for stuff they want and you don’t. And you can search other people’s swap lists for items on your wish list, and try and get them to trade.

Sure, the system has some flaws — many members have complained of “swap-lifters” who receive but never send, and you never know if the item you receive will be in the condition described. But there’s a pretty good system in place for rating users and giving feedback, kind of like eBay. And so far I’ve only had experiences ranging from medium to great — never overtly bad.

A couple times now, I’ve gotten ahold of items I was dying to try, but didn’t want to shell out money for. And my main goal was to pare down my excess surplus of beauty goods, which I’ve definitely been able to do. I’m still getting rid of things all the time, and the shipping cost is usually pretty nominal.

Swaps have been great for me, and I just wish I weren’t so insanely picky — but since certain ingredients always send my skin haywire, I’m fairly conservative about what I’ll swap for. A couple times I’ve just sent users items of mine without asking for anything in exchange, just to put some good swap vibes out there and to see products I never use go to a good home. When you’re as invested in products as I am, it’s nice to see them appreciated!

You do have to create an account to use Makeup Alley for these purposes, but accounts are free and totally private. Nothing but pluses in my book!

As some of you Imaginary Readers know, I’ve been on a major hunt for the right concealer solution. I think I may have finally found it — or rather, them.

I was poking around Sephora testing out all the different concealers, and nary a one really matched my skin tone. But I came across this 5 Camouflage Cream Palette, which is exactly like it sounds — five cream concealer shades that you can blend to create custom coverage.

This seriously seemed like the only option, since nothing was spot-on for my coloring (no pun intended). And it has the added benefit of letting me create a different shade for concealing acne on my chin, which for me is whitish, versus my cheek, which is very pink. And theoretically you can also use it for under your eyes, which is an area I rarely use concealer on — but when I do, I need a very different shade than the rest of my face — much yellower.

Sounds perfect, right? The problem is, I don’t love the ingredients. They’re honestly not THAT bad, but they’re not all-natural either. And they did seem to contain some potentially pore-clogging components, which sort of defeats the purpose of an acne concealer. And there are definitely a few other acne-safe concealer products on the market, but none with the color range this palette provided. What a dilemma!

So to solve this, I decided to create my own palette. I ordered a bunch of 2.5g mineral powder concealers from Everyday Minerals. (I would have ordered from Alima, as I’ve heard more positive reviews of them, but EM had corrective color concealers like green and yellow, whereas Alima did not — and I only wanted to pay one shipping charge!)

Grant and I are saving up to replace our broken digital cam, so it’s tough for me to take decent digital pics right now. But here’s a crappy cell-phone pic of my rainbow concealer palette, just to give an idea:

The Everyday Minerals solution has been GREAT so far! In typical EM fashion, they included a couple freebies, one of which was a lavender corrective concealer powder. So that’s one more shade to add to the spectrum. I also purchased mint green, sunshine yellow, and five of their six skin-toned concealers (all but the deepest). I’ve been applying them with synthetic-haired concealer brushes, and I even found that some areas were easier to cover with a big synthetic foundation brush.

I’ve applied colors directly onto problem areas in single layers, or multiple color layers, and I’ve also tried mixing custom blends in my palm first. It all just depends on how my skin is looking that day. But I LOVE that I can tweak it this way or that to make sure it’s a good match, and I’m actually finding that these powders look less, well, powdery than the Alima samples I’d tried in the past. I think it’s because they offer slightly less coverage, which in this case is a good thing — too much coverage means that concealed areas REALLY stand out, since I don’t normally use foundation and my skin has natural variations in tone that I actually like.

And of course, these don’t aggravate acne nearly as much as a cream concealer would. My breakouts seem to heal much faster now, as well as being better-covered, and they don’t wind up with that super-dry-and-flaky look that some powder concealers (ahem, Alima) were giving me. And most mineral concealers have pretty decent sun protection, too, which helps keep my healing blemishes from forming scars.

All in all, I think I may have finally found my concealer solution! The overall price was no more expensive than if I’d purchased the full Make Up For Ever palette, and I have a much greater variety of shades this way. I’ll update if my opinion of this custom palette changes over time.

I think the only real problem is figuring out how to travel with these, or create a purse-size version for touch-ups. (However, the coverage seems to last long enough that touching up isn’t as necessary as I’m used to.) This isn’t a huge hurdle for me — I already travel with a massive amount of cosmetics/toiletries, and hey — mineral powders don’t count toward the liquid limit for carry-on baggage, so that’s another plus!

Dr. Hauschka recently released the new Pure Care Cover Stick in the US, but I only realized today that it’s meant as a replacement for their old Cover Stick Puncto. Had I realized this, I probably wouldn’t have purchased it — the old Puncto went bad on me surprisingly quickly, and the color was never quite right. (I’m much too pale for an 02, but just a shade too dark for an 01.)

I bought the Pure Care in 01 to try it out and see if it’s any better with my coloring than the Puncto was, but they look like they’re exactly the same. And they feel the same. And they smell the same. The only real difference seems to be the packaging — which is good, really, as it *does* expose the product to less oxygen, so theoretically it might protect it better from going bad.

Either way, I was pleased to learn today that my local Whole Foods allows you to return any cosmetics or skincare product you try and don’t like, as long as you keep the receipt. This actually really surprises me, but I’m thrilled — especially since they foolishly don’t have testers for many of their products. So I’ll be returning this, and thus returning to my Great Concealer Search.