I feel pretty--NOT! THE COSMETICS THREAD

I love Veronica's lipstick although when I looked it up I didn't realize it was purple/berry (not my normal thing). I would still try.

Is there a foundation that is good for sensitive skin? I don’t go to Sephora bc it is too big and overwhelming for me. Maybe I should try Kiehl’s? Their size is more my speed. I have no idea what shade to get.

I have sensitive skin, rosacea etc, and struggled with foundation for a while. I finally settled on Estee Lauder double-wear. I don’t get breakouts or itching, it lasts forrrrrrever, and gives my skin a v pleasing dewyness.
They have a normal formula & a lighter formula, if you don’t have blemishes etc you could try the light formula to start? idk.
And this might be corny & oldschool but the makeup counter women at Macys/Nordstrom etc know their shit, they are good at finding yr shade, and the experience is way less annoying than Sephora or (ugh) Ulta.
ymmv tho

soooo i never wear foundation. i just buy liquid makeup in the bottles for evening out. i don't think i NEED foundation but it is a nice idea for bad skin days maybe? it's always scared me!

"liquid makeup in the bottles" isn't foundation?

It is.

ok i didn't know! so i don't like USE it as foundation though, i just use it as concealer/where needed. am i crazy?

surprise, you are wearing foundation

lol right now even :) for YEARS

sort of takes the "fear" away eh?

i try not to wear it in the summer but sometimes i do if i want to look/feel extra good

yes--that makes sense. i've gotten better at blending it in to my natural skin tone which has proved v important.

dumb question: what's the difference between concealer and foundation, and how do they work together? Like, what are you supposed to do with them? What is their ideal function?

concealer is intended to be heavier coverage for spots that are not the same color as the rest of your skin (zits, dark spots, undereye circles, what have you)

foundation is lighter coverage (ime, usually) and intended for full-face skin tone evening.

at least that is what i thought...?

The main reason that I don't wear daily foundation or powder except is because when I had a boutique job over 15 years ago we used to have to try to clean all the clothes that had make-up on them from women trying them on and pulling it against their faces. It just totally turned me off.

This is why I was interested in fenty foundation (after seeing that article about Daniel Kayuula wearing it at the oscars and hugging Jordan Peele in his white suit).

Ah! that makes sense. :)

today i rediscovered my Jane Iredale bb cream <3

ymmv but I really like those egg-shaped sponges for applying foundation. way quicker and more even than using my fingers.

i am most comfortable using a brush, i cant get sponge application right

The main reason that I don't wear daily foundation or powder except is because when I had a boutique job over 15 years ago we used to have to try to clean all the clothes that had make-up on them from women trying them on and pulling it against their faces. It just totally turned me off.

ha ha ha oh god....

if I never have the clean of deodorant marks of black jersey again....

ugh

so i'm still on the fence RE: whether or not to get an overnight cream for the eyes. i have pretty resilient olive skin and my moisturizer/overnight moisturizer combo seems to do the trick, but i LOVE all about eyes by Clinique. is eye cream still a thing?

also i'm quite positive i've asked this before, but wondering if anyone has a favorite blend-able *pencil* eyeliner.

Idk why at age 38 I still can’t make up my face in even the most basic fashion. I’ve watched and read enough beauty tutorials that I should be moderately proficient by now. I just can’t seem to get past having a cake-face. The last year or so I’ve had no interest in my appearance but since I’ve been feeling better the last couple months I’m putting more effort in but it’s bumming me up that I can’t do decent full-face makeup. NB I’m not interested in Instagram-style makeup, but would like to master a simple fresh daytime look and a simple classic nighttime look. Why is it so hard for me?!? I’ve probably watched 500 tutorials on how to apply foundations and concealers and it still looks terrible on me. The coloring of my face really annoys me bc it’s cobered in sunspots and I’ve got lots of redness in the lower part of my face, and I can’t figure out how to work with it - if I try to cover it, it looks cakey and/or flat, and if I try sheer it just doesn’t look good.

Sorry for rant but I tried to do my face this morning and thought it looked good in the natural light of my bedroom but then it looked horrific in the natural light of the bathroom?!?

it took me until last year to finally find a foundation that didn't look cakey or fake...it can take FOREVER.

one thing that helped me was good brushes, then using less foundation and blending more. if you have a good full-coverage foundation you shouldn't need to use a lot, even if you have blemishes etc. and then i started using a light HD powder just to make sure it doesn't move. I found with my skin that foundation + regular loose powder just settled everything into my pores after a few hours and looked gross. it can get kinda crazy with blemishes and problem skin juggling concealers and finding the right color/coverage, so obviously all this is a huge ymmv x 1000

I completely get where you are at J, it's a very disheartening feeling!! <3

Thanks, lady <3

I’ve got this nars foundation but I might try the infamous Estée Lauder doublewear soon

it is the truth, i know i sound like a broken record but i havent looked back

I feel you both. I'm dealing with 40s Australian skin rn and its a fucking mess. Thinking I might need to hit a dermatologist for the first time ever.

Does anyone have favorite youtube bloggers for makeup?

Actually i'm kind of having a moral crisis with make up atm. My 11 y/o made an outfit for an annual show we have here in LR that has ark. students recycle/re-purpose 'trash' into fashion. She had to model the outfit in front of a couple of hundred people and specifically said to me before the show that she didn't want to wear makeup. I was completely on board but as soon as we were in the dressing room her teachers just took over putting makeup on her face and trying to curl her hair. I didn't want to make a big deal about it in front of her friends so I kept quiet about it however when the show started the MC would comment on each child's outfit as they walked down the catwalk but walking back up the catwalk she would go on and on about how great they're hair and makeup was if they were girl. When the boys walked back up the catwalk she talked about how creative they were. I sat there fuming for over an hour regretting not making a big deal out of it earlier and swearing I was going to throw out all my makeup when i got home, which i didn't but, you know, fuck that shit.

That's completely messed up. This shit is so ingrained. I constantly scold my mother whenever she tells my nieces that they are pretty or sexy or cute (she is asian, so it is especially difficult to communicate to her why telling a preteen child that they are sexy is wrong). I've given her dozens of words to use as compliments instead of saying something about how attractive they are. I gave her a pop test one day by asking her what she thought of Michelle Obama. "Ohhh, she's pretty." NOOOOoooooo.

on a similar note,
i have found it surprising how pervasive the idea of porelessness still is
skin has pores; seems like hating ones pores is just another way to hate oneself and i am not down with that

i wear makeup btw i just have a gut-level reaction toward the invisibility of pores

Ugh yeah skin has pores and makeup should just be fun not an expectation of women/girls :/

I think my fave beauty youtubers are the ones who acknowledge the above and don’t even wear makeup every day + talk about skin care.
These are some whose channels I’m subscribed to, though I don’t keep up with watching all that much though I really love a couple of the Canadians on this list haha. And I have yet to get into eyeshadow despite most of these youtubers’ love of it! haha I try sometimes with 2 neutral colours...

Lisa Eldridge
Melissa Alatorre
Gothamista
Itslikelymakeup
Samantha Ravndahl
Roxette Arisa
Kristen Leanne
Marie Jay
Jackie Aina
Jenn Im
Jamie Paige
Stephanie Nicole
Kandee Johnson

I’m not sure I watch any of these channels for much more beyond entertainment tbh, like the love of watching transformation, so the wilder the makeup the more I tend to like it, but a few of these channels do focus on less is more makeup and have good tips on application and products. And most of these people are younger than I am, so there’s a slight disconnect re: what my face and skin can deal with + I don’t care too much about “festival makeup” and other trends in reality.

lol my makeup youtube inspos are all drag queens : raja, willam, raven & kimchi

I was about to say, since I stopped going into an office I rarely wear makeup but now that I've binged 8 seasons of RuPaul Drag Race in 3 months all of a sudden I have an interest in makeup.

I don't have that big of a forehead but I kind of want to block my eyebrows just for fun.

Oh lol not sure why I didn’t include the drag stars I watch on the tubes! #kimchi #sashavelour #trixie&katya et al. <3

I do think that the Rise of Drag has contributed to the Rise of youtube Beauty Gurus! And def the Rise of Contouring

I've never contoured before and I don't even have a blender sponge but it is on my list for this year for fun. And I really want 1-2 lace front wigs. This may also be because I never had a barbie makeup styling head which I always wanted.

went to sephora & bought myself some presents
- Urban Decay Heavy Metal eyeliner: Catcall
- Urban Decay Vice lipstick: Wrath, metallicized - must be like my 97th red lipstick lol
also snuck over to MAC
- Frost lipstick: Plum Dandy
The almondy flavor of Mac makes me v nostalgic. Mac was the first non-drugstore lipstick I ever bought <3

I am craving frosted metallic lipsticks rn, like the old Cutex line from the 80’s but it is slim pickings, everyone is matte matte matte.
I don’t mind a matte but they just feel so boring to me idk

i'm not into matte either but they look really good on some people (people who aren't me)
my favorite metallic iipstick is a coppery Urban Decay shade called CONSPIRACY and second favorite is a very weird iridescent light purple called PALLOR that really makes me look like a corpse...in a good way?

I think the only makeup person I follow these days is Katie Jane Huges on IG. She doesn't do tutorials but I've definitely gotten inspo from her and one of the reasons she's great is that she makes of point of saying often how skin should look like skin. https://www.instagram.com/katiejanehughes/?hl=en

(And by that I mean that she's into showing that skin has lines and pores and texture and never edits any of that out.)

I am slowly making my way through the other youtubers listed above but wow for the KJH ig. I love her style.

The first thing I thought of when I opened her ig page was "she looks like she gets enough sleep and drinks a lot of water."

:) I love her style too and want to be friends with her. She's who I meant a while back when I mentioned that I did a glossy purple eye thing inspired by her and tagged her in it and she wrote me back saying it was very pretty. A lot of the stuff she does is very editorial but yet her glossy/natural skin makes it seem wearable somehow. Most of her stuff is still way more makeup than I ever wear but she's definitely given me a lot of ideas. Also, her stories are full of good skin care info.

Her eyeshadows are beautiful. For some reason I assumed everyone was doing some version of kardashian and that seems fun to do once or twice but I think I would look really kabuki.

i've been using my foundation for around the eyes which i feel is not the best (it may even be terrible?)
gonna have to research undereye concealers for the first time soon weeee