I feel pretty--NOT! THE COSMETICS THREAD

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

I've seen tutorials that use a flat iron to melt the glue or heating the shadows in the oven.

Another reason to depot is that some palettes, like the Urban Decay ones for example, take up so much space with all the packaging.

I love Urban Decay eye potion primer... works a treat.

For Christmas this past year I also got a HUGE Sephora makeup palette/box/etc. I love it. The shadows are really pretty great. The only problem I am facing is what I'll do if I ever travel.

I really like the UD pencil liner in perversion. Dark-ass matte black. Looks 95% like a liquid on, which is great for me because I am absolutely incompetent at applying liquid eyeliner. Nice fatty black line.