Primer : Beauty and Fashion Tech

Neutrogena Skin Soothing Eye Tint

Neutrogena Skin Soothing Eye Tint is a fun little cream eye shimmer, good for use as a light illuminizing base or as a targeted highlight.

I find the the tint to be a pretty good way to add a subtle shimmer without going overboard. This can also be used elsewhere on the face. I like to use the light pink shade (petal shimmer, linked above) on my cheek bones under a generally matte blush. I also have used it on my brow bones. Overall, it is a fun and inexpensive way to add just a bit of subtle shimmer anywhere you want it.

Neutrogena Eye Tint also has a cooling aspect to it, so it feels nice and can reduce puffiness. So that is a bonus!

Aside from the petal shade, it also comes in the shade Honey Shimmer.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Makeup from DHC Skincare: Moist Color Base, Q10 Foundation, and Q10 Powder

DHC skincare is a Japanese skin care and cosmetics company. I have been a long time fan of DHC skincare products, especially their Olive Oil cleanser (read previous DHC review), but until recently, I had not tried much of DHC’s Makeup. So I decide to change that and sent in an order.

I decided to try out a combination of DHC foundation and makeup products to see how well I could achieve a look using them that would hopefully lessen the appearance of my melasma, but without using a full coverage foundation. I found a good mix for that. These item also contain Coenzyme Q as an anti-aging ingredient. So you can get some double duty action out of them!

First off, I applied DHC Q10 Moist Color Base . This product comes in several varieties:

Pink: Lends a rosy glow to diminish yellow undertones
Apricot: Adds warmth to liven pale, dull complexions
Beige: Balances uneven tones for a natural neutral look
Yellow: Ideal for moderate redness and unwanted pinkness
Green: Helps conceal severe redness issues

I used beige, which was advertised to help even out the appearance of discoloration. I found that it worked fairly well for that. The base is a light beige tone that doesn’t really tint much, but does help lessen the look of hyperpigmentation. Despite the term “moist” in the name, It came out quite matte, which I liked since I was fairly oily at the time that I tried it. Because of its shade, I think it would work for fair to medium skin, but those with truly porcelain skin or with brown skin might not find it very useful. The base acts quite well as a basic makeup primer, but if you want a true silicon primer, try out DHC Velvet Skin Coat instead (read review). That one is also clear, so it works well with all skin colors.

Next, I applied DHC Q10 Liquid Foundation. This is a sheer foundation with Coenzyme Q10 to add anti-aging properties. I appreciate double duty products, so I liked the idea of this item before I even tried it. Once I did try it, I loved the product. DHC Q10 foundation is sheer and a bit moisturizing, making it very comfortable to wear. Coverage is sheer, so while this doesn’t cover my melasma well alone, I found that it worked well in conjunction with the moist color base. For those wanting just a bit of sheer evening of redness and such, this foundation would be a good choice. One downside though is that the container rather small for the price point.

My favorite of the bunch was the DHC Q10 Face Powder . In fact, this has become my favorite facial powder, replacing my previous and more expensive favorite, Laura Mercier powder. This powder has a wonderful silky feeling to it and it sits well on the skin without overly settling into wrinkles and pores. The container is also of a decent size. I love it and will be a repeat purchaser.

Items from DHC skincare are generally available only online or through mail order. You are allowed to select four DHC samples with each order and their catalog comes with samples included, so it is a good mailing list to be on!

Popularity: 7% [?]

Elizabeth Arden Limited Edition For Fall

Elizabeth Arden has a nice selection of limited edition duo eye shadows for fall, along with a nice gel eyeliner, eye primer, and other items.

I tried out one of the duos in Illusion (center left above) and loved it. Elizabeth Arden shadows are always quality. They are finely milled and have a particularly good color payoff. Arden’s packaging is also always nice, with heavier attractive cases and many choices in palettes. The duo I tried is perfect for a light smoky effect. Pictured below are swatches from the duo:

I also was impressed with the gel liner,which comes packaged with a brush. The brush is useable, but I preferred to use my favorite, a Smashbox Arced Liner Brush. The gel goes on smooth and is easy to work with to create either a sharp or smudged line. There is an eye primer too that I have not tested yet. So keep an eye out for a later review of that!

Elizabeth Arden is available at better department stores, specialized beauty stores such as ULTA Beauty , and various online sources.

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Popularity: 26% [?]

Callas Light Up Makeup Base

Callas Cosmetics is a French Company that has cosmetics designed in Japan and France, but made in Korea. I gave a bunch of their products a try and was quite impressed.

Callas Light Up Makeup Base is a rather interesting item because it can work both as a foundation or as a primer. The Callas base provides moisture and UV skin protection and is available in a couple of color correcting shades, plus in the shade Milk, which is a light natural tint. The base feels great and when used as a primer, works quite well as a base for further makeup.

But the milk shade of the base also gives decent light coverage–similar to a sheer tinted moisturizer. So while it can be worn as a primer, I found that it also was perfect alone for some moisturizing, sheer coverage. My favorite use has been as a foundation on my upper face, and as a base for mineral makeup on my lower face where I have some redness and pigmentation.

I linked to the order page from Amazon.com, but I actually ordered mine from Yesstyle, which is my favorite Japanese and Korean fashion, beauty, and accessories site. You can also view Callas items at Callas.com.

For more on Callas Cosmetics and YesStyle see my previous Callas eye shadow post.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Review: New Sally Hansen Natural Beauty Cosmetics Inspired by Carmindy

Sally Hansen Natural Beauty has released a wonderful full line of cosmetics “inspired by” Carmindy from TLC’s show What Not to Wear. I am a big Carmindy fan and I liked her book, The Five Minute Face (Read Review). I also have been pretty impressed with Sally Hansen as of late. The new Sally Hansen Natural Beauty line focuses on natural ingredients and is paraben free.

When I saw the line at CVS, I bought a number of items to try. I was left highly impressed and am willing to bet that several items from this line will make my year end best of 2008 list (Read the 2007 list)!

The Sally Hansen Natural Beauty line includes foundation and powder, but I have so many unfinished items of those, I didn’t buy any. Instead, I got the primer, eye shadow base, an eye shadow trio, cream blush, lipstick, and a mascara. The look I created with the products and each item is covered below. All items are worn in the photo below. I am also wearing Laura Mercier Oil Free Foundation (Read Review), Laura Mercier translucent powder, and M.A.C. dual edged eye pencil in a blue/gray shade from the Heatherette collection.

The Natural Beauty Luminizing Face Primer is a really nice silicon based primer. It has a lighter feel than the cult classic Smashbox Photofinsh (Read Review), yet worked just as well. I found that it primed my skin quite well in preparation for foundation by leaving it smooth and silky. The luminizing properties are also a welcome addition. At around $10, this primer is an incredible value, and I am not aware of any other comparably priced primers of this quality. Revlon has a decent primer, but it does not provide the perfectly nice skin surface that the Sally Hansen product does.

Sally Hansen Natural Beauty Fast Fix Eyeshadow Base is another great value product. There are not a lot of drugstore shadow bases out there and this one is quite lovely. It has a light, easy to spread cream texture, that feels like it must have a touch of silicon in it. I found that it made my shadow look smooth and crease free all evening. This will become a staple product for me.

The cream blush is another great item in Salley Hansen’s new line. It is silky smooth, and Bloom, the shade that I purchased, has a nice rosy color. It is pretty well pigmented and builds pretty well, so those with darker skin can likely wear it just fine. At the same time, it also blends well, so I could wear it well with my pale skin as long as I applied with with a light and well blended touch.

Sally Hansen Natural Beauty Cosmetics Carmindy

The Natural Beauty Instant Definition Eye Shadow Palette comes in basic and fairly neutral color sets. I decided to go for the Ocean Eye Palette, a gray/navy combo, because I seem to have acquired way too much brown shadow. The shadow is decently pigmented, blended fine, and lasted well. I did not have any creasing issues. It seemed like a standard decent quality shadow to me with nothing really outstanding, but nothing wrong with it either.

The Natural Beauty Lift & Define Mascara was nothing special for me. The brush is small (I tend to like that), but has rather wide spaces between the bristles, which I think can make things clump easier. It went on OK, and looked OK. I don’t think it would be my first choice in mascara, but it wasn’t bad either.

Finally, I loved the Color Comfort Lip Color! Perfect Pink, Rose Parfait, turned out to be perhaps one of the best pink shades I have found in some time. For a full review of it, head on over to my post at Girl Gloss!

The bottom line: The Sally Hansen Natural Beauty Cosmetics line is a welcome addition to the available drugstore makeup choices. I particularly recommend the primer and shadow base. These items are comparable to, or perhaps even better than, other much more expensive products. The rest of the line is quite nice as well. Well done Sally Hansen!

Look for the new Sally Hansen Natural Beauty at drugstore and at ULTA Beauty.

Popularity: 79% [?]

Laura Mercier Oil Free Foundation Primer

As part of my ongoing quest to find the perfect foundation, I recently tried some Laura Mercier products. In the process, I decided to pick up some of the oil free primer, which tends to get very good reviews.

The Laura Mercier Oil Free Foundation Primer is a bit different from other primers that I have used. Instead of being silicone based like Smashbox Photofinish, or DHC Velvet Skin Coat, the primer feels like a light moisturizer. Because of that I found pros and cons to it.

On the good side, the primer feels wonderful. It goes on silky smooth and gives a light moisture, yet it is oil free. I had no issues with breakouts when using it. It also contains some particularly good illuminators, so it gives the skin a wonderful radiant glow. I have found that I like to wear the primer best when I am not wearing foundation, solely for the illuminating effect.

On the downside, I don’t know that it primes for foundation all that much better than a regular moisturizer. Silicon primers tend to really smooth out the skin and fill in fine lines to make foundation look great and last longer. The Laura Mercier product does not fill in lines and smooth the skin the way a silicon based product does. Nor did I notice it make my foundation last longer. I would say that it stayed on about the same as if I had simply used a light moisturizer first.

The cons, however, do not make this a bad product. It is a product that I highly recommend as long as the expectations are correct. I love it for its ability to act as an illuminating oil free moisturizer. In fact, I think it is one of the absolute best of those out there and I will keep using it as such. But I don’t find it to be a foundation primer in the way I have tended to define the term.

I also tried several of the Laura Mercier Foundations and Concealer. Watch for reviews of those soon!

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Popularity: 12% [?]

Benefit Cosmetics Realness of Concealness Kit. Contains Ooh la Lift, High Beam, Lip Plump, Lemon Aid, and Boi-ing.

I have been discovering a number of new favorite products lately, with one of the best surprises being the ability to discover several all in one box. Benefit’s realness of concealness kit contains small versions of several of Benefit’s most popular products, all in one cute little package.For general concealing, the kit contains lemon aid and boi-ing.

Benefit’s lemon aid is a light yellow skin tone corrector developed for use on the eyelids. It does a great job of covering up red areas and evening out skin tone, especially on my very fair skin. It also works very well as an eyeshadow base. The only issue I had with it was that it didn’t spread quite as well as I would like. I have read suggestions for the full size version of putting it under an arm for a bit to warm it up and make it spread easier. Sure enough, on a warm day where I did not turn on the air conditioning, it spread much better. So keeping it on the warm side is a useful tip for using it. I also have used it under my eyes and put a bit of boi-ing over it. I’m not sure how darker skin tones would adapt to this product. It does cover red well, so it might still useful on darker skin if a darker concealer is placed over it.

Boi-ing is a standard brown tone concealer. The kit provides it in medium, which I thought would be too dark for me, but I find that it works fine on my pale skin if I put a bit of lemon aid under it. This concealer covers well, and spreads a bit better than the lemon aid. I like it quite a bit. Benefit sells boi-ing in three shades.

Also in the realness of concealness kit are three tubes consisting of high beam, ooh la lift, and lip plump. I am hooked on ooh la lift! This light pink cream has just a hint of shimmer to it and is supposed to give your eye area a cooling lift. It does have a bit of a cooling tingle that I like, but I don’t notice the lift part of it so much. Instead, the reason I like it so much is that when put over a bit of boi-ing, it makes for a really good light reflecting under eye concealer. Ooh la lift makes my under eye area look great! I will be purchasing a full size version of this product and using it regularly.

High Beam is a highlighting cream in a pinkish shade that works very well to highlight various areas. The shade seems to be pretty universally flattering. I have been using it on my upper cheekbones and on my brow bone and like it just fine.

Finally, the kit contains lip plump. This lip primer is OK. I’m not enamoured with it and likely will not purchase a full size version, but I also don’t dislike it and will use up the little tube in the kit. Light brown in color, and fairly thick, lip plump provides a decent base for lipstick. It takes a bit to dry and is a little sticky until it does so, which is something I tend to lack patience with. I can’t say that I noticed any plumping from it.

Overall, Benefit’s realness of concealness kit is a great way to try five of Benefit’s popular products all at once. It also is a nice way to have a bunch of concealing and luminating products all together in a convenient little kit. It would be great for travel.

You can buy Benefit online at a number of locations, including directly from the Benefit website
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Popularity: 9% [?]