Eyeshadow's Best Friend

After a long night of dancing and socializing a friend asked me what eye makeup I use because it was still vibrant and perfect after eight hours. The vibrant part is easy: skip over drugstore eyeshadow and head to the department store. While I don't agree with MAC's business ethics, they're the first counter I visit when I'm looking for something bold- my favorite is Steamy, a gold tinged teal. Generally I love Stila's eyeshadows the best, which aren't that expensive when you consider the pan size and the line offers a beautiful spectrum of gorgeously wearable neutrals. This is not to say that all drugstore lines are all terrible (Milani for example is generally comparable in quality to mid-end lines), but eyeshadows are notoriously hit or miss and generally a drugstore brand won't deliver the pigment necessary to go uber vibrant. This is especially true of shades in the blue-green range, which look sickly as they start to fade.

The other half of the equation is Urban Decay's Primer Potion. If you want your eyeshadow to last, this stuff is truly a miracle worker. My oily skin makes all eyeshadows crease, it's just a matter of time. While it inevitably does so when I'm using Primer Potion, I still make it about seven or eight hours before any creasing develops as opposed to one or three. I've found that I use less eyeshadow now because I don't have to reapply, so it's definitely a great investment in that regard.

The major issue with Primer Potion is that it takes some time to master. Because it adheres shadow so strongly to your skin, blending becomes more difficult. I had previously mastered blending a wash of shadow to just above my eye crease and I've had to re-learn how to do it, and it definitely takes a few more minutes now to do it correctly. You absolutely must use a good quality fluffy medium powder brush or it will look smudgy, and I've found that loading the whole side of the brush evenly with powder and slowly working it along the lid is the best technique. If you blend shadow unevenly around the edges it's easy enough to gently wipe off with a finger, but if you typically do a wash of a light shade from lash line to browbone and then work in a darker color from lash to crease, I would suggest applying the light shade second which will allow you to correct mistakes and aid in blending out the edges of the darker shade. It's also slightly problematic that Primer Potion flattens the shimmer in frosty shadows. This is a good thing if you're not a big shimmer fan, but I love how pale frosty colors like Stila Kitten almost make the skin look wet, and Primer Potion definitely ruins that effect. These two issues aside, it's still very much worth owning for keeping eyeshadow intact through work and late night social events. It retails for $15, one tube should last you months.