I decid­ed to wear a full face of make­up yes­ter­day, and I was large­ly pleased with the result. I did run into some prob­lems with a few things, and I’d like to keep track of my expe­ri­ences with each for­ay into Full Face Make­up I make for a while. That’ll help me nar­row down what prob­lems are poten­tial­ly the prod­ucts, and what prob­lems are poten­tial­ly me being so out of prac­tice.

Problems I Encountered

• Eye­shad­ow. I have slight­ly down­ward-slop­ing hood­ed eyes. In order to “lift” the eyes and make it seem like they are not hood­ed, I typ­i­cal­ly bring my crease col­or direct­ly straight out from the top-most part of my open eye, then blend up slight­ly from there. But yes­ter­day, I couldn’t blend out my out­er-v to save my life. If you’re not aware, the out­er-v is the out­side cor­ner of the eye, in/slightly above the sock­et. I’m quite dis­ap­point­ed in myself there. I’m not sure if my lid primer just didn’t set well there, or what was going on.
• Foun­da­tion. There are so many pos­si­bil­i­ties as to what’s going on here. What hap­pens is that the foun­da­tion starts to wear away around my T-zone, and also acquires a slight­ly cakey look. So my thoughts are, either the foun­da­tion itself isn’t a good match for my skin, or I’m not blend­ing it cor­rect­ly, or I’m using too much, or I need to set it dif­fer­ent­ly, or my skin­care rou­tine is inter­fer­ing. I’ve nev­er had a foun­da­tion so per­fect­ly match my skin before, so I’m real­ly hop­ing it’s a user error here!

What I’m Wearing + Mini Product Reviews

• May­belline FaceS­tu­dio Mas­ter Camo Col­or Cor­rect­ing Pen in green. My face has been exceed­ing­ly red as of late, so the green cor­rec­tor is to neu­tral­ize the red. It’s prop­er­ly called a pen, because it’s very like one of those twist-to-use pens. The appli­ca­tor is real­ly odd to me. It feels too small to cov­er the amount of red I have on my cheeks, though it was per­fect for apply­ing around my nose. I find it doesn’t real­ly blend eas­i­ly, but I can make it work.
• Milani Eye­shad­ow Primer. I’ve been using this for a cou­ple years, since I’m too poor to afford Urban Decay’s. It works quite well, but I do find I have to set it with pow­der before I add eye­shad­ow.
• the­Balm Smoke Balm eye­shad­ow trio (sad­ly dis­con­tin­ued!) and Cindy-Lou Man­iz­er on the lids. The palette has a slight­ly glit­tery deep navy blue that I used as eye­lin­er, a mat­te gray that I used for the out­er 1/3 of the lid, out­er-v, and crease, and a very shim­mery cham­pagne col­or that I used on the inner 1/3 of my lids. I used their Cindy-Lou Man­iz­er, which is a high­light, on the cen­ter of my lids. I have no com­plaints with the palette. I’ve used it quite a lot ever since I bought it — I’ve hit pan on the mid-tone! I’ve nev­er found it dif­fi­cult to blend before, so I’m think­ing I just didn’t set the primer well enough. Or I’m just out of prac­tice.
• NARS Cli­max Mas­cara. I love this. Unre­served­ly love it. Eas­i­ly with­in my top 3 favourite mas­caras. It gives my lash­es more length and more thick­ness, it doesn’t irri­tate my eyes, and I don’t have to scrub at my eyes to get it off. High­ly rec­om­mend.
• Cov­er­girl Micro-Fine Fill + Define Eye­brow Pen­cil in Soft Blonde. I know, I have dark brown brows, so why pick up a blonde brow pen­cil? I’m not a fan of the super sharp gra­di­ent or col­ored-in brows. At least not for me. I pre­fer basi­cal­ly My Brows But Bet­ter. Dark­er col­ors make my brows look far too dark. And the blonde fills in the gaps where I just don’t have hair growth there. It’s per­fect. I typ­i­cal­ly use taupe as a col­or, but real­ly am dig­ging this blonde.
• May­belline Instant Age Rewind Eras­er Dark Cir­cle Treat­ment Con­ceal­er in Bright­en­er. I had this once before and wasn’t a fan of it. It kept creas­ing under my lids, even though it absolute­ly bright­ened them up. Once I learned that you shouldn’t put a ton of con­ceal­er or any­thing in the under-eye area, I thought I’d give it anoth­er whirl. Still creas­ing, but I won­der whether I’m just doomed to creased under-eye cir­cles for­ev­er.

• May­belline FITme! Con­ceal­er in 10 Fair. I just used this on my fore­head and on a patch of red­dish dry skin beside my mouth. I think I should try it under my eyes some­day. I’ve heard it com­pared to Urban Decay’s Naked Con­ceal­er, so I’m inter­est­ed.

• Too Faced Born This Way Foun­da­tion in Swan. This is the only foun­da­tion I’ve ever found that com­plete­ly match­es my skin. I guess the jury is still out as far as whether it’s a good for­mu­la for me.

• L’Oréal True Match Super Blend­able Pow­der, in either Soft or Clas­sic Ivory. I’m also won­der­ing whether this is what’s mak­ing the foun­da­tion fade and cake. Isn’t this basi­cal­ly a pow­der foun­da­tion? Maybe it’s all just too much.
• theBalm’s Cindy-Louman­iz­er as blush. Yes, you read cor­rect­ly ear­li­er that this is a high­light. But when you’re a pale-ass bitch like I am, it func­tions as a blush. I’ve used it for years and adore it.
• Revlon Ultra Mat­te HD Lip Col­or in Kiss­es. This is anoth­er prod­uct I love. There is trans­fer, but I’m not too fussed about that. This time, I put it on, let it set, blot­ted, and put a sec­ond coat on. And the col­or last­ed all day. It was like blot­ting it made it func­tion some­thing like a lip stain. I also love the for­mu­la. I have very dry lips that I often chew on, so mat­te lip­sticks are often some­thing I have to recov­er from for a few days. Not this stuff.
• Urban Decay All Nighter Set­ting Spray. Can I be hon­est? Can you keep a secret? …I’m not par­tic­u­lar­ly sold on this set­ting spray. I know, I know, burn the witch. But I just am not sold on set­ting spray in gen­er­al. I need to do prop­er sci­en­tif­ic test­ing to decide how I real­ly feel about it and if it real­ly does any­thing to my make­up.

Makeup of the Day. For Science!

Real­is­ti­cal­ly, I guess that last point is why I think I’m going to start doing these doc­u­men­ta­tions and reviews. Prop­er sci­en­tif­ic research, data col­lec­tion, etc. You know. Like a good artist should.

Do you have any favourites that are com­pa­ra­ble to what I talked about here? Do you have insight as to why my eye­shad­ow blend­ing and foun­da­tion longevi­ty are the way they were yes­ter­day? I’d love to hear more!