Splurge Or Save: Makeup Primers

Welcome to our newest feature: Splurge or Save. All of us have certain items that we love, regardless of the cost. A certain brand of moisturizer. That uber-expensive mascara. On the other hand, we all have other items that we just don’t care to spend one penny more on than we have to. Splurge or Save will highlight different categories of items and give you our recommendation for brands that you might want to spend a bit more on and others that can save you a few dollars.

Makeup primers go on the skin after your moisturizer and before your foundation. They allow foundation to go on more smoothly, minimize fine lines, hold down shine and help keep makeup fresh and in place all day. I think they’re the best thing to happen to makeup since… perhaps ever.

What makes primers work is dimethicone, a silicone-based polymer that is often used as a lubricant and conditioning agent.  No matter what brand of primer you use, odds are dimethicone is in the mix.

There are many brands of makeup primers available, so no matter what your budget, you can find one that works for you. Here are my three picks:

Splurge

Smashbox Photo Finish Primer – $36 for 1 oz. at Sephora
For me, this is the grande dame of makeup primers and the first I ever used. Although it’s pricey,  one ounce will last you a while.  It does what it says. It’s noteworthy that Smashbox cosmetics  grew out of a professional photo studio, so they are considered professional-grade.

 

 

Save A Little

BareEscentuals BareVitamins Prime Time – $22 for 1 oz. at Sephora
I am a huge fan of BareEscenutals’ entire line (especially the foundation), so this mineral-based primer was a natural try for me. I find it to be just as good as the Smashbox, but quite a bit less expensive.

 

 

Save A Lot

Monistat Soothing Care Chafing Relief Gel – $6.79 for 1.5 oz at Drugstore.com
I know what you’re thinking – yeast infection medicine?! On my face?! Well, no. While it’s made by the company that brings you yeast infection treatments, this Monistat product is made especially to help reduce chafing. As such, it contains dimethicone. And is under $10 for over an ounce. Seriously, ladies, if you closed your eyes , you’d never know the difference between this and the Smashbox stuff.

 

After using all three off and on, I’ve settled on the Monistat. For this item, the splurge is not worth it to
me. I’d rather spend the extra money on a great lip gloss.

Of course, you may not.

Feature photo

bareMinerals – Flawless Coverage

All my adult life, I have been looking for a makeup that gave me real coverage for my uneven skin tone, but that wouldn’t clog my pores and make me break out. Having a built in SPF would be an added bonus.

A couple years ago, I was in Sephora and on a whim picked up the bareMinerals Starter Kit. It was $60. I took it home and tried it immediately. And I was instantly in love with the coverage. It was exactly how I wanted my skin to look. I didn’t have any trouble mastering the “swirl, tap and buff” method of application. Best of all, it didn’t make my skin break out.

I had one complaint—all the powders. Between the foundation, the blush and/or bronzer, and the Mineral Veil finisher, it was a mess. And if I traveled, which I was doing a bunch of at the time, all the powders would end up spilling into the lids and making an even bigger mess until I was able to use up all that had spilled in the lids. I got so frustrated that I gave up and gave it all to a friend.

I tried several expensive brands of makeup after that, all with disappointing results. Then I found myself at the mall one day with time to kill and went into the bare Essentuals store and talked with one of the sales associates about my concerns. She agreed that the mess had in fact been a big problem for people, and they were starting to roll out containers that have a rotating cap so you can close it and not spill the powder everywhere. For the products that didn’t have it yet, she gave me an easy fix. Instead of tearing off the whole sticker (that covers the holes in the lid) upon purchasing the item, take a safety pin and poke only a few holes out. That way when you travel, it can’t make such a huge mess. DUH. What a simple solution. I bought ANOTHER Starter Kit then and there and haven’t looked back.

The system begins with a primer. The bareMinerals brand is called Prime Time and comes in a few formulas depending on your skin type. The second step is the foundation. I use Matte SPF 15 Foundation. To apply, you use a technique they call Swirl Tap Buff, which simply means you swirl the brush in the powder, tap the brush to remove excess powder, and then buff it on your face. Then you add your blush and/or bronzer, using the same technique. The last step is the Mineral Veil which sort of locks your makeup in place. I really love the look and the feel of the whole regimen.

I also have to confess to not being exactly um…. shall we say, consistent in my evening skin care routine. I’ve slept in this stuff far more times than I care to admit. Even then, it doesn’t make my skin break out.

The other thing I’d like to point out is that the brushes that come with the Starter Kit, as well as any additional brushes you may buy later, are of excellent quality. They require little care. Every couple months (or let’s be honest, when I remember) I just wash them with my shampoo and let them air dry. They don’t shed too much and they are soft but keep their shape.

I can’t recommend this stuff highly enough. If you are unsure, go to a Bare Essentuals store if you have one and have them put it on you. I think you’ll be a convert too.

A Way To Touch Up Mineral Makeup Without The Mess

My friend Megan introduced me to Bare Escentuals bareMinerals makeup a few months ago, and I have been in love ever since – with only one complaint.

I use the Bare Escentuals bareMinerals SPF 15 Foundation and the Bare Escentuals Mineral Veil to set the powder.  My only problem to date has been that there wasn’t a good way to apply touch ups to my makeup through out the day.  You see, although the mineral makeup has the amazing ability to provide great coverage while being super light and natural looking – it all comes in a loose powder form.  In other words, it’s really, really, messy.

Much too messy to stick a pot of foundation or mineral veil in your purse.  Which sucks, because a quick retouch of mineral veil at 4:00 in the afternoon gives you instant fresh face.

Thankfully, the good people at Bare Escentuals have answered my prayers in the form of a refillable buffing brush.

Read more

Do drugstore eye primers work?

I have been trying to find ways to cut back on my beauty budget.

That means giving myself pedicures and at-home facials.  It means going a little longer between hair cuts and letting my girlfriends wax my eyebrows for me.  And it also means buying drugstore brands whenever possible.

Several weeks ago, I ran out of the eyelid primer I use to make my eyeliner smudge proof.  Instead of replenishing it immediately, I began searching for a drugstore eye primer.

A few trips up and down the beauty aisles of Wal-Mart and Target proved to be fruitless.  I turned to Google, thinking perhaps there was an alternative similar to my Monistat Chafing Gel As Foundation Primer that I hadn’t heard of.

What I discovered online were several reviews for L’Oreal’s De-Crease Eye Shadow Base.  It was the only eye makeup primer I found mentioned that would be available at a local drug store.  Fortunately, I thought, all of the reviews were positive.  This stuff, it seemed, was exactly what I was looking for!  And it would only cost about $8!

Someone on a Yahoo! beauty forum owes me $8.

I’m not sure what, exactly, L’Oreal’s De-Crease Eye Shadow Base is supposed to do.  Maybe it gives you a smoother surface for applying eye shadow.  My shadows did go on slightly better with the base than they did on bare skin.

But the number one reason I use an eyelid primer is to extend the life of my eye makeup – and this eye shadow base did absolutely nothing for me in that department.  I should have suspected as much when the primer/eye liner mixture washed off the back of my hand with water and a quick swipe.

While L’Oreal’s De-Crease Eye Shadow Base is half the cost of Bare Escentuals bareVitamins Prime Time Eyelid Primer, the bareVitamins Primer actually works.  It makes my eye shadow colors more vibrant, it mixes with my liner powder to give me smudge free eyeliner, and it makes all of my eye makeup stay on all day.

You can’t buy Bare Escentuals at Wal-Mart, but you will get a free sample product when you buy it from Sephora.

Bare Escentuals Buxom Lips – my most expensive lip gloss

I can’t believe I paid $18 this weekend to replace a tube of lip gloss that I lost.

But really – it’s that good.

So good, in fact, that I willingly endured another trip to my local ULTA so that I could plop down $18.  For lip gloss.

Bare Escentuals Buxom Lips is currently tied with Burt’s Bees Lip Shimmer for my all time favorite lip gloss.  And while Burt’s Bees is awesome and only about $4.99 at a drugstore – I still couldn’t resist the urge to get my hands on another tube of Buxom Lips.

Read more