makeup, makeover
Bare Escentuals is a good line of mineral makeup. They were the first to go for market saturation with their name and product, and so today when many people think of “mineral makeup” they think of Bare Escentuals. (This is no longer the case. Folks who want to try mineral makeup now have a LOT of options.) If you use mineral makeup, and the Bare Escentuals team has a makeup artist event in your area, I suggest you go.
However, don’t just go and expect pearls of wisdom to drop from the makeup artist’s lips. Figure out tips and tricks you want to learn, ask for those specific things, and be aware that not everything the BE makeup artists do will work for everyone. Your opinions and routines may be different, but that doesn’t mean that their automatically wrong.
When I signed up for the makeover, I already knew that I wanted to ask about eye makeup application. All the women on my mother’s side have the same heavy lids, and so have the same problems with the “lashline-crease-brow” school of eyeshadow application: any crease color is completely hidden unless our eyes are closed. I also wanted to ask two other questions, since I had no formal introduction in how to wear makeup:
- where is the best place on my face to apply blush
- how do I use the brow powders to look natural-but-better, rather than “I’m-ready-for-my-closeup”
I arrived right on time for my appointment. I had tried to arrive earlier, but the parking pixies - those magical beings who make sure that someone leaves their parking spot just as you come down the row - just sniggered and said, “A mall on a weekend when it’s the first rainy day since early summer? You’re on your own. Some things are just outside our scope, ya know?“ When I did get to the Nordstrom’s BE makeup counter, the crowds were insane. I checked in and then was lead outside of Nordie’s, into the mallway…where there were several makeup stands and chairs set up specifically to handle the ginormous crowds. (Smart, these people.) I was handed off to a nice woman named Nicole who helped me prep my face: wipe-off, skin revver-upper, eye primer, and a facial moisturizer called Wisdom. (Good thing I didn’t fall in love with that last product. It’s apparently been discontinued. And why do they not stop folks, even in the prep area, from using discontinued products? *sigh* Moving on…) She asked me if I used their MD Formulations, and I said that I tried it but saw no effects. I also let her know that I had tried using their Prime Time for two months, and it increased my breakouts a LOT. So, yay, no Prime Time. Next, on to the artist. Quick digression: Bare Escentuals seems to have a mindset that beautiful = healthy, and healthy = slightly (or very) bronzed. (I agree with that first part, but I part ways with BE on the second half of that equation.) This mindset shows up in BE’s foundations, their blushes, and their lip colors. All look best on folks who are clearcut Spring, Summer, or Fall. Warm-toned folks are by and large fine. Cool-toned folks…it’s a dice-roll. Cool-toned Winters are SOL. And guess who’s a cool-toned Winter, as are most of the women on my mom’s side of the family? Yup - your narrator. My eyes are light blue-grey, and my hair is dark ash blonde. I grew up in the Southwest, and ran around outside whenever I got the chance, so I know what I look like when I’m tanned. My haircolor and tanned-skin color don’t contrast much, and my light-blue-grey eyes really don’t stand out much. It’s bronzed, it’s healthy, but it’s not beautiful on me. We now return to our story. I sat down at Audie’s station and was briefly introduced to Christine, who would be taking notes on which products were used. Yes, this is an attempt by BE to get you to buy more of their product. However, as I was specifically there to learn and as my short-term memory is lousy, I was glad to know that someone would be handing me a personalized cheat sheet of this session. I told Audie what questions I had about eye makeup and blush application, and she said, “Okay, no problem. I’ll make sure to walk you through each step.“ (While a makeover is nice, the knowledge was what I really wanted. I was slightly concerned that I’d get a makeup artist who worked their magic without explaining the tricks. This was most definitely not the case. I had a makeup artist who was perfectly willing to be an instructor. Thank you, Audie!!!) The artist asked me if I used the BE foundation, and I told her about the skin sensitivity: I had used BE foundation for two months, but noticed that my skin was itching a lot more and thus stopped using BE’s foundation. The mineral veil didn’t bother me, and neither did the eye makeup…but the foundation did. (Don’t ask me why. It doesn’t seem to make sense: all three of those products have many of the same ingredients with a few variations and some differences in proportions, so if one bothers my skin, shouldn’t they all cause the same problem? All I know is that when I stopped using BE foundation, waited a week, then started using it again, the itching returned. I stopped using BE foundation, waited a week, and started using another mineral foundation. No itching. That’s proof enough for me.) She then said, “You used…Light?“ I said, “No, Fair mixed with Mineral Veil to lighten it.“ The doubletake was interesting. I think I gave her a quick bit of mental whiplash. She applied Fairly Light foundation, which she said was a total match to my skintone. (Yes, but I want my skin to appear a shade lighter to give more contrast between hair-eyes-face…ah, never mind, what the heck.) Next, she asked me if I used Warmth. I said no, it was a little too dark for my preferences. She said she wanted to try applying some, so I agreed. I’m here to learn, I thought. It’s highly possible that I’ve just been applying it wrong. This may actually look good - who knows? It’s silly to pass up an opportunity to learn something from a makeup professional. The artist applied the Warmth to the sides of my face, to my chin, and lightly on my forehead - which was different than the instructions in the various BE catalogs. It looked okay, not amazing, but it didn’t look as bad as when I had tried to apply it. I made a mental note to myself, and she continued with the makeover. She did one of my brows, then let me see the mirror so I could see the difference. The brow powder really helped define my face, but didn’t look too heavy or artificial. She had applied it with small strokes, along the grain of the brows. I hadn’t ever tried this stuff, and left to my own devices I would have applied it in one long stroke…and probably been displeased or even discouraged with the results. So those two bits of information - which color was best for me, and how to apply it properly - were much appreciated. Next up, the eyes. I had mentioned that I was buying the Bare Crystals kit, and so would appreciate some application tips with the items in that kit. First the artist applied an all-over color: Vanilla Sugar. I did notice that instead of using long strokes to apply the color, the way I often did, she was patting and using short strokes. When I asked her about it, she told me that with mineral makeup you have to pat it into place to get coverage. Then she demonstrated on the back of her hand. I had taught myself everything I knew about applying makeup, remember, starting with sponge applicators and pressed powder shadows. You can’t pat those unless you gouge a furrow in your pan of shadow and really overload your sponge - you drag your sponge applicator across your lids, spreading the powder. More information, always a good thing. I had mentioned that I was buying the Bare Crystals kit, so she used those colors for my eyes: In the Buff lash-to-brow on the inner and center portions of the lid; Guilded Quartz on the outer lid, angled up and inward; and Smoky Quartz applied wet as a liner. I liked the way my eyes looked. I had initially been a little concerned that the eye colors (specifically Guilded Quartz, and green-goldish brown) wouldn’t look all that great on me, since I have a rocky relationship with greens and greenish colors unless they’re emerald. This looked good, though. Next, the blush. The artist applied Golden Gate, which I have avoided since it looks like it would be too orange for me. (See previous note about my being a Winter. Pinks, reds, and jeweltones are good for my coloring. Oranges and bronzed tones? Not so much.) However, I did learn that part of my problem applying blush was that I’d been angling it down too much. It should go from the tops of the apples of the cheeks back to the temple. (Factoid three, and in my mind, I now have the “price of admission” covered.) The artist asked what kind of lip look I preferred. I told her, “close to my own skintone, but slightly more defined.“ I mentioned that I used the sheer buxoms just about every day. She lined my lips, then applied some light streaks of lipliner inside the lines. This would bring some darker color to my lips - but not too much - and would minimize the contrast between lipliner and lip color as the day went on. (And there’s another factoid I had not previously known. I had assumed that lipliner only ever went on the outside of the lips, or around the outside.) She finished my facial application with Mineral Veil, and showed me the complete look. It didn’t look “made up”, which had been a minor concern. It looked good. This, combined with the items I had been planning to buy anyway, made this trip worthwhile. The problem came when I got to my car, sat down, and looked in the rearview mirror. While my makeup looked okay in the mall, in the yellow light from the makeup artist’s mirrors, in natural Seattle daylight (grey-blue - welcome to the coastal rainforest) I looked like I had applied the makeup on my own, for the first time ever. I looked “made up” - specifically my skin was too bronzed, the blush was applied too heavily, and the lipstick was a bit too dark. I didn’t look like Tammy Faye Bakker, but I didn’t look all that well “made up”, either. I looked about as graceful as Drew Barrymore does in those ads for Mabelline foundation, where Drew looks like someone attacked her with a can of spray-tan. When I got home, it took five facial pads to wipe off all the foundation and blush. (Usually it takes two, possibly three.) I left the eye makeup since it looked okay. I just wanted to get rid of my California Kabuki look. I would have been disappointed, or even annoyed, if I hadn’t gone in there knowing a couple of things:
- what specific knowledge I wanted to walk away with
- what specific products I wanted to buy - and what products I didn’t want to buy (five separate people tried to interest me in either the Bare Pleasures kit, or the Ultimate Indulgence box set. I already own most of the colors in each of those sets.)
If you just walk in and sit down, I’m sure that you won’t be totally satisfied, and you’ll probably be sold some items that you may not have wanted. Either way, you’ll feel passive and pressured…and the artist may be floundering, too, trying to figure out what to do for your makeover. (Or they’ll just apply the products and that’s that.) Go in there with a purpose - whether it’s how to make Wildflower work with your coloring, creating a look for an upcoming event, learning how to use a product, or learning how to accentuate or diminish certain facial features or skin issues. That could greatly change how satisfied you are when you walk away.
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