Makeup

Today's nails: Essence Ultimate Pink, a bright rose-pink that almost exactly matches my pink work polo. I couldn't have matched it this well if I'd been trying, but I didn't even realize they were the same color until I was getting dressed!

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I mentioned buying makeup base while we were on our trip - that's the one on the far left in the picture below - and that got me to thinking about posting a picture of the makeup I wear. This isn't my makeup stash per se because I don't really have a stash to speak of any more - or not in the sense that I think of when I think of a nail stash, anyway, where I have a range of stuff to choose from. This is it, practically. Besides this, there are a few things that I carry around in my purse or in the car, and a few similar items to these that I will discuss, and then maybe a few old eye shadows and things that I haven't gotten around to tossing out yet. Nowadays I only buy makeup when I run out of something, for the most part.

So what's here is:

1. Maybelline Fit Me, color 110
2. L'Oreal Color Match, color C2
3. L'Oreal Color Match, color C3
4. Smashbox Bionic mascara (sample size)
5. Urban Decay De-slick
6. Benefit Boi-ing concealer
7. Benefit thrrrob blusher
8. Omnia Amethyste cologne
9. (bottom row) Clinique Surge Protector (sample size)
10. Vivienne eye serum
11. Revlon Colorburst in Lollipop
12. Sephora powder puff (which could really use a good washing!)

One reason there's not more here is because I had to quit wearing eye makeup. I guess you'd say I became allergic to it, or at least hyper-sensitive. The bottom line is, it makes me cry continuously when I have it on, so I got to the point where I gave up on wearing it. For years before that I wore at least a little mascara, and often a neutral eyeshadow and sometimes eyeliner too, but all that's gone by the wayside now. I did find the mascara at the top of the picture in my stuff, and so I put it in the picture as an example of the last mascara I did wear, but I haven't touched it in a couple of years so it definitely needs to be discarded. (For the record, I did really like it other than the whole allergy thing.) At one point I bought one of those Sephora sample sets that was all mascara for sensitive eyes, and EVERY SINGLE ONE of them still made me cry. I was hoping to find one or two, at least, that I could wear, but no. So after that I decided I was done with trying. Mascara doesn't make you look any better if it makes your eyes red.

Makeup base: the L'Oreal Color Match is my usual brand. The reason there's two bottles of it here is that after buying C2, which was a hair too light, and then C3, which was a hair too dark, I finally started mixing them together to get my own custom shade. So apparently I'm a C2.5. Walgreen's is always having BOGO-50% off sales on these anyway, so I just buy them two at a time, now. - You can tell looking at that picture that the Maybelline one is even paler than the other two, and it really is considerably paler than even my annoyingly-pale skin. The formula seems to be almost identical to Color Match as far as I can tell. They may ALL end up mixed up together!

Mascara I've covered already. The powder is colorless and I just use it where I tend to be shiny. I try not to overdo - I don't want that old-lady look that you get from too much powder!

I inherited the dark circles under my eyes from my mother - who actually had them even worse than I do, so I guess I shouldn't complain too much. Sometimes I just use extra makeup base as a concealer, but I also have a variety of concealers that I use. (And I have to be extra-careful not to get any of these things into my eyes, or we're back to the crying I was talking about above.) I've used Physician's Formula a lot over the years, and the Benefit ones are good, but the concealer that I'm carrying around in my purse these days is Maybelline Luminous in Ivory. It seems to do a good job. (Most of the print has come off of mine after a few months of bouncing around my purse, but I guess it's this stuff.)

The blusher pictured is my old box of Thrrrob, which is almost empty, and I looked for it at Sephora last winter when it started to run out, and didn't find it, and was on the verge of panic when I figured out that Benefit still had it on their website. Whew. So I do have a new one now, as well. I have trouble with both lipstick and blusher; what I've figured out over the years looks best on me is something poised right between purple and pink, and it can be a hard color to find. My very favorite ever was another Benefit color - I think it was called I Lotus'd You Looking, but it was LE and is long-gone. Thrrrob is the best substitute I've found, and I've looked at a lot of brands. The lipstick in the picture is Revlon Lollipop, which is slightly too pink, but I've found if I put it on really lightly, it looks really good. I do have some other things: a pink WnW lip balm that I really like, and a Benefit super-glossy lipstick that I'll have to see if I can find the name of. Lipstick is probably the one makeup thing where I still experiment around from time to time.

As far as the things there that aren't really makeup - moisturizer and cologne - the only colognes I own these days are this Omnia purse spray, which I've had for several years, and a bottle of Clinique Happy, ditto. I don't wear a lot of cologne these days but I do like both of these.

Moisturizers - I love my Vivienne eye serum but given that they're one of those annoying companies that sell from carts in the mall, I'm not entirely sure I'm going to buy any more when this finally runs out. It was very expensive, too, although I've had it for a good while and it's still going strong. As far as a more general moisturizer, I've been using the good old yellow Clinique stuff since I was a teenager (when it was a brand-new thing), and I also like their Moisture Surge, which is what's in the picture. I've also used Neutrogena off and on. I've always had oily skin and it's just now starting to dry out enough - bear in mind that I'm 53 - that moisturizer is becoming a bigger issue. I used to buy a small bottle of Clinique and it would last me several years. Nowadays I have to buy the big pump one - but it still lasts me a while.