Favorite Eye Products!

In no particular order:

1. 1. NARS Smudge Proof Eyeshadow Base ($24 for 0.26oz)
• The best of any eye primer I've ever tried.  My shadow looks brighter and doesn't budge with this under it.
2. Urban Decay Primer Potion ($20 for 0.37oz/$30 for 0.85oz)
• My daily primer, not as quite as good as the NARS base but better bang for the buck and still a great primer.
3. Tarina Tarantino Eye Dream Hyperliner in Spark of Envy ($15)
• A beautiful teal-y green pencil that is wonderfully pigmented even in the waterline.  Gorgeous!
4. Buxom Stay-There Eye Shadow in Pug ($18 for 0.12oz)
• Makes for a super-easy and perfect pewter grey.  It's a go-to for when I don't have much time.  I especially love how well the color sticks, how it blends into a perfect gradient and that it looks almost glossy on.  Can't say enough!  The colors "Schnauzer" and "Mutt" are also great.
5. NARS Eyeshadow Duo in Cleo ($34 for 0.14oz)
• Though it broke on me during travel, it's still a gorgeous color combo and very pigmented.
6. Inglot Eyeshadow Freedom Palettes (palettes vary on size; $5 per shadow)
• Ummmm…  Already gushed about these.  Amazing variety, pigmentation, quality, quantity, blah, blah… THE BEST!
7. Smashbox Jet Set Waterproof Eye Liner in Midnight Black ($22 for 0.1oz)
• The best black gel liner I've found yet.  Doesn't move.  I wish it was a little bit less dry so it would apply a bit smoother but better dry than creasing!
8. Make Up For Ever Eye Seal ($21 for 0.4oz)
• Incredible for turning pigments (Glamour Doll Eyes, MAC Pigments, Sugarpill) into eye liners or make them very vibrant.  They WILL NOT move!
9. Benefit's They're Real Mascara ($22)
• Still the best overall mascara I've ever used.  It's volumizing, curling and lengthening without being clumpy.  Just wonderful.
10. Fairydrops Scandal Queen Mascara ($24)
• My biggest lash concern is that my lashes are super straight which makes them look shorter than they are.  This mascara is very good at curling and has fibers for lengthening as well.
11. MAC Paint Pot in Painterly ($17.50 for 0.17oz)
• I use this for priming my lids occasionally or for a no-makup look.  Great product.
12. MAC Eyeshadow in Nylon ($11.50 for 0.05oz)
• One of the most beautiful highlight/tearduct colors I own.  (And one of the few MAC shadows I still use..)
13. Sugarpill Pressed Eyeshadow in Poison Plum ($12 for 0.14oz)
• My favorite purple shadow.  No comparison!
14. Sugarpill Loose Eyeshadow in Royal Sugar ($12 for 4 grams)
• The most beautiful deep blue pigment.  Le GUSH!
15. Inglot AMC Pure Pigment Eyeshadow in # 64/65 ($14 for 0.07oz)
• My favorite two pigments for making smoky eyes.
16. Dior 5-Colour Palettes ($59)
• Already gushed about these too.  Need I more?
17. NYX Jumbo Pencils in Milk and Black Bean ($4.50)
• The best inexpensive white and black bases!  Great for darkening or brightening any eyeshadow as well as helping them stick to my lids.
18. Urban Decay Eyeshadow in Sin ($18 for 0.05oz)
• My favorite shimmery nude to add dimension to my eyes.
19. Urban Decay 24/7 Glide On Eye Pencil in Perversion and Gunmetal ($19)
• My favorite all-around pencil liners.  Perversion is especially useful in the waterline.
20. Smashbox Limitless Liquid Liner Pen in Jet Black ($22)
• Best way to make a flawless winged liner I've found.  No bleeding and it stays put!

My Quest...

I am one of those super white people.  You know the type.  I'm Miss Glow-In-The-Dark, Lady Paler-Than-Death's-Horse, Madame Can't-Survive-Without-SPF and if I had a Cherokee name I'm betting that it would be something like She Who Fears The Sun.  But you can just call me Sally.

Being fair in an unfair world (yea, I went there) has always been a challenge.  Finding non-icky sunscreens, looking for colors that don't wash me out but the worst?  The endless search for a perfect foundation.

Of course I realize that most makeup wearers have this conundrum, this same odyssey for their "Holy Grail" foundation.  But I feel that being far paler than is average makes things a lot more complicated.  It doesn't help that so many brands oxidize on me.

My cousin recommended Bare Minerals to me and I was thrilled to find that it was in fact my shade, among it's many other attributes.  Gone were the lines of demarcation and the nasty germy application sponges.  It was beyond a relief.  And I was very loyal up until recently.  But I got restless watching all my favorite beauty gurus wear and recommend different liquid foundations.  Not to mention my Bare Minerals wasn't sticking on my t-zone very well anymore.

I tried Tarte Amazonian Clay 12-Hour Full Coverage Foundation in Fair and found it, as usual, to warm for my skin.  It ended up giving me an orange hue and it was a little drying.  Not really the foundation's fault really.  My skin is White Sands, New Mexico.  Arid and, you guessed it, WHITE!  And fuller coverage foundations tend to be drier formulas in my experience.  But it was a start.

And so the search continued…  I then tried LORAC Breakthrough Performance in SMS 1. It was a significant improvement but still not perfect in that was a slightly too yellow.  But I really liked the texture.  Then I tried Make Up For Ever HD Invisible Cover Foundation in 110 and was pretty pleased to see something with pink undertones in it but the texture didn't stick to my skin like the LORAC foundation and it was still too dark.  So I combined the two and liked that better.  But was still not perfect yet.  My foundation still wasn't quite pale enough…  So I bought what I know to be the whitest foundation available, Illamasqua Skin Base Foundation in 1, and waited for it with bated breath.  My first try at mixing the three foundations was something that made even me look pastey which was actually a bit of a pleasant surprise as it's NEVER happened before.  I found that I had to be very light-handed with the Illamasqua foundation as it really is an off-white with a slight pink undertone.  It also made my foundation a bit drier but I recently corrected this with more moisturizer beforehand and adding NARS Illuminator in Copacabana to (what is now a very complicated) mixture to sheer it out, make me dewy and helps correct imperfections.

While I don't think my search for my perfect foundation is yet over I am glad to see brands making paler shades to accommodate those of us with this issue.  Might try NARS Sheer Glow in Siberia next. : p  And I wish you all luck on your journey to your perfect shade!

Here are some swatches.  I would like to remind you that I'm yet a novice and photography is not my forte!  The light's very yellow in my apartment.  Might wanna work on that...

From Left to Right:
1. Tarte Amazonian Clay 12-Hour Full Coverage Foundation in Fair
2. LORAC Breakthrough Performance in SMS 1
3. Make Up For Ever HD Invisible Cover Foundation in 110
4. Illamasqua Skin Base Foundation in 1
5. NARS Illuminator in Copacabana