I feel pretty--NOT! THE COSMETICS THREAD

Yeah, I have a couple of those too and they are v nice but I just never remember to use them.

so it turns out there are like a gajillion vids on youtube showing you how to keep your liner from smudging. maybe i'll do some experimenting tmr morning...

And then let us know! :)

I really like the Urban Decay eyeshadow primer. I also have a handful of those cheap ass Eco Tools brushes that they sell in Walgreens and Ulta and I think they're great (although I've never owned brushes that cost any more than those do so I can't really compare).

I like brushes for eyeshadow, powder, and blush, but everything else I put on with my fingers. I think my fingers, which I wash a lot and specifically right before I put on makeup, are going to be a lot cleaner than a concealer brush, which I would probably wash once every couple, three of months (because I am apparently cheap and disgusting w/r/t makeup brushes).

yeah I'm bad at washing brushes

I did a foundation brush for a while but I prefer fingers too

Anything that's not powder just seems like a very messy proposition, brush-wise.

I switched to Bobbi Brown cream blush just so I could avoid using a brush. They say you can also use it for lips, but it doesn't seem to be v. moisturizing and I normally wash it off in frustration when I can see it sinking into my cracked lips.

Does anyone else reuse sponges for foundation until they're too gross? Brushes inevitably leave streaks on my face (so I just used them for powder), but using a new sponge every time for stippling wastes so much of my product.

Eyeshadow primer is the business and absolutely essential for my oilpit eyelids. I didn't wear any makeup except mascara yesterday and the mascara from the tips of my eyelids had blurred onto the non-primered oil magnet of my eyelids. Insane! The Urban Decay one is my favorite.

clearly I need this magic tool

i too have oilpit eyelids

seriously without it nearly everything has ended up in the crease in 2-3 hours; faster when it's hot

I got this cute little primer set from Sephora for $10, the Benefit one with a face primer and eyelid primer and pore balm thing. The eyelid primer is p cool but my eyeshadow still creases after a while.

Eyeshadow primer changed my life.

Me too!! I like the Eden colorway of UDPP. Sometimes I use the white NYX jumbo pencil as well. (Other colors of NYX seem to crease though.)

Sometimes I use a brush with foundation, sometimes not.

Apparently the NARS eye primer is really good; I'm going to try that out after I finish up the Kat von D primer recommended by roxy (where *is* roxy, anyway?).

Busy with school, I think.

I think I might like the Smashbox one that FFM gave me more than I like UDPP but they're both p good imo.

I liked the UDPP but it drove me nuts that I had all this primer trapped in the crevices of the weirdly shaped bottle! :*(

It drove everyone nuts. I used to saw the bottles in half and scoop out the product. I'd get at least another 5 months use out of it!

They've changed the packaging now.

Ahh, good. It made me so sad!

this may be a silly question but is eye primer used on both the lid and undereye area or just for the lid area?

Laurel, I use the super liquid eyeliner. Ive tried other but in the end Lineur Intense is all time <3

Liquid eyeliner I cant stand are the ones shaped like markers. Hey, makeup companies your marker steez makes liquid eyeliner HARDER to apply, not easier.

Those are the ones I like better! The felt tip ones. They're much easier for me to use.

I had a great Sephora-brand liquid eyeliner, great tiny brush it was awesome. I don't like marker-liners much either

Rayuela - I think generally they're meant for the upper eyelid area only but believe there are some (Benefit's Stay Don't Stray) that are also made for the under-eye area. I could be wrong about that though. I've never put them anywhere other than eyelid.

I love marker liners too! The liquid liners with just a few bristles to draw it on with always go floppy on me and create bumps. I do also like putting on cream liner with flat brushes - E, you got the cream liner but I think it came with a more traditional brush :( This is my most successful liner brush:

http://di1-3.shoppingshadow.com/images/pi/54/fe/2d/72016914-260x260-0-0_Smashbox+Smashbox+Precision+Cream+Eyeliner+Brush+2.jpg

Yeah, it did. That cream liner is good. I love the color.

smashbox and sephora seem to send me lid primer every time i order something so i may have a tube or two (never used, dudes)if veg or rayuela want to try it out. Ill have to double check though. My makeup drawers are a huge mess and im a certified chucker (someone who throws tons of useful or never used stuff for fear of becoming some kind of creepy horder, btw).

oh also Laurel Im a devotee of L'oreal Voluminous mascara too

Voluminous 4 eva. It is the best!

I have a bit of a makeup hoard too. Last week I depotted all my random eyeshadows and smaller pallettes and glued the discs to a few cardboard boards. So nice and compact now! I used to have lots of single-colour pots, which are so annoying for quick application. /too cheap to buy a blank MAC pallette

http://s3.amazonaws.com/imgly_production/4172769/large.jpg

it involved lots of me burning plastic and poking discs out :P

Hey guys I have a question: I've always had a fear of returning stuff to stores but I can remember a lot of you saying you've returned stuff to Sephora and they're fine with it so give me a yay or nay on this particular situation please.

I've used Smashbox halo powder before and i love it. I ran out and managed to get a free sample instore one day. Well i quickly ran out of that and went to buy some the other day. Thing is i couldn't remember if my shade was 'Fair' or 'Light'. So some middle aged lady comes up to ask if she can help me with anything. I explain my dilemma and she suggests we try both on and see which looks better. So she takes me to this weird little mirror that's in a gap between two aisles directly under a fluorescent light. She brushes a little of each way back on my jaw line near my ear. 'Oh it definitely the Light shade. See? Definitely!' Well no I cant really see with this crazy light, tiny mirror and having to turn my head away from the mirror to try to get a glimpse but okay she seems pretty confident so I go with the Light.
That was a week ago and its become very clear to me that 'Light' was definitely not the shade I had before because the mix of my skins pink undertones and the powder's browny-orange overtones i look like a freaking oompa loompa.

Will they exchange if I don't have neither the bag, box nor receipt? I can print out a proof of purchase since it is listed under my account on the Sephora site and it also shows where it was bought.
Also, if I can return it, can I take it to a diff Sephora or are they all independently owned or something?

Woah FFM!

hahaha yes, am crazy person! Now I have two pallettes stuffed with shadow which live in that cute blue box you can see in the picture. Yay!

Never purchased a thing at Sephora in my life so can't help you. But is halo the white powder? I ran out of my normal powder so broke into that and almost choked on a powder cloud that rose from it! Had to step outside the bathroom for a minute, hehe. I am a spaz.

haha yeah i was always an antipowder person until halo. its not white. comes in about 6 shades:

http://www.sephora.com/productimages/sku/s1087071-main-Lhero.jpg

i also highly recommend this to get rid of redness:

http://www.sephora.com/productimages/sku/s1262773-main-Lhero.jpg

smashbox and sephora seem to send me lid primer every time i order something so i may have a tube or two (never used, dudes)if veg or rayuela want to try it out. Ill have to double check though. My makeup drawers are a huge mess and im a certified chucker (someone who throws tons of useful or never used stuff for fear of becoming some kind of creepy horder, btw).

i am a creepy hoarder. i would love to try some! i feel like i'm learning so much about makeup in my thirties...haha.

ffm, that looks like it was a fun project!

sunny I would love to try some out if you have any to spare - super cool of you to offer!!!

Sunny, you can pretty much return anything at any Sephora. I once returned a The Balm concealor and later realized I didn't even buy it at Sephora in the first place. WHOOPS! No receipt or bag needed but you can print out the proof of purchase if it makes you feel better. I return stuff there all the time. Most recently a Laura Mercier lipstick because I decided I hated it. I'd hate it at least 6 months but only used it a couple times. No questions asked.

Ahh - Sunny, that's the powder I ran out of. We get our biannual orders soon so I'll grab a few. Yay! I'd offer to pick things up for people but shipping would negate my discount :(

Rayuela: it was! I recommend it. Used YouTube tutorials to learn how to de-pot.

Well i went in on my lunch break and tried to swap them out. AT first the woman was all 'hey you bought this at a JCPenney sephora and our sephora is the real sephora'. I explained that I had read on the website that JCPenney items could be exchanged but not returned for $$$ and since I just wanted to exchange... "oh I need to ask someone now!" she says. Then she came back and said it was fine and was super nice after that. Made me feel like I lost $60 on the street and found it again a couple of days later. phew!

hooray!

One of these days I will depot my eyeshadows.

What is the benefit of depotting? Similarly, what does that actually mean?

you know how when you buy single eyeshadows they come in a little metal tray inside a larger container? Depotting them means removing them from that larger container and putting them into a big palette, so they are all together and not floating round in a jumble.

Ah. That makes sense.

if you ever want to do it, there are a billion youtubes on how to (it involves heating up the container iirc).

Yay Sunny! That's good news.

Here are my new depotted Pallettes: http://instagr.am/p/KQJzQljbCB/

You use an old fork to hold the plastic bit over a candle flame til disgusting smoke chokes you/melts the glue holding the disc to the plastic, then pop the disc off with the fork. It was messy but now I can see many of my colours all at once. Success!

wowsers!
that also makes me realize that i really haven't explored the wonderful world of eye shadow and i def don't have lighter colours even tho they are prob best for me + eyeliner - dark colours make me look like i've been punched in the eye, imo!
which also has something to do with my skin's fairness + pink undertones. i've tried yellow or green powders and they don't do much for my skintone! but i haven't really explored too many options. also i don't like wearing layers of makeup, primer, etc. the only thing i'm wearing these days is a powder foundation from Mineral Hygienics, which doesn't make my skin break out - this is also bc my skin has gotten a lot more even-toned and breaks out waaay less if at all because rx topical drugz yaaay