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

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.

Use Eyelid Primer for Smudge Proof Eyeliner

Getting your makeup to look good in the morning is easy.

Getting your makeup to still look good in the afternoon is like trying to live on a diet of chocolate cake and ice cream:

some people do it, but no one knows how.

I had tried every eyeliner known to man and still couldn’t keep my eyeliner from either disappearing completely or dissolving into smudge circles under my eyes.  I used liquid eyeliner, eyeliner pencils and even tried my hand at powder liner with an eyeliner brush.  All of it yielded the same results – fabulous at 9am and craptastic by noon.

And then a Bare Escentuals makeup artist changed my life forever.

Now my eye makeup stays perfectly in place until I wash my face at the end of the day.  My eyeliner survives rubbing, sweating and late afternoon naps without even a hint of smudging.

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