Do you look in the mirror each the morning and wonder who the face looking back at you really belongs to? Come on now, ‘fess up, somebody swapped their face with mine, right? That CAN’T be me!
With even the best facial care, age brings some lines and fine wrinkles to the skin. The disruption of smooth skin is accentuated by some cosmetics. Oh boy, do I know! My garbage can has acquired more cosmetics in the last five years than my face has. When I was young, I could smear on just about anything and look good. These days the heavier foundations and eye shadows accentuate every rumpled bit of skin. I’ve been made up by someone selling their wares, then gone home and washed my face and wondered why I looked 10 years younger when I removed their makeup!
So what is a woman to do? Here’s what I’ve used, and the results I’ve noticed. If it saves you even $5 in tossed make-up, then reading this is $5 saved. If you found a five dollar bill lying in the street, you’d consider it a lucky day…so if I can save you the same amount, it’s another five dollar bill in your wallet.
Delving back through the years, I can remember using Mary Kay Cosmetics in my 20’s. Back then they offered a solid pancake foundation. One added water to it (warm worked best) and mixed the water into the foundation with a sponge. The result was sort of a liquid base which could be applied with the sponge. This stuff went right into the pores…and stayed there! As a result, using a masque once a week was essential.
I found the Mary Kay pancake foundation very useful when a wealthy date asked me to a New Year’s Eve tennis match. I went out and bought a new Head tennis dress, then woefully examined my lily-white legs. Mary Kay to the rescue! The solid foundation was applied with water and a sponge, then “set” with a very cold washcloth. The result was a gorgeous tan which garnered tons of compliments at the club that night. A little came off on my dress, on the inside hem, but generally the wet washcloth had done the trick. By the way, it took days of showering for the make-up to come off entirely.
Since then Mary Kay has moved to the traditional foundation bases (www.MaryKay.com). I have a very sweet Mary Kay representative who is about my age. She never leaves the house without the complete compliment of make-up, applied to perfection. What I don’t think she is aware of, is that while her daughter looks great in it, my representative’s foundation forms an obvious “mask.” It is expertly applied, however the liquid foundation is too heavy for the age of her skin. In other words, the pigment isn’t fine enough. My Mary Kay Rep just can’t figure out why I don’t purchase her foundation anymore and I don’t want to hurt her feelings by telling her.
Mary Kay’s eye shadows are rather unique in that for years now they have allowed you to mix them with water. This is heaven-sent for contact lens wearers! Regular powdered eye shadow has tiny bits of powder which fall off during the day and cause contact lens wearer’s pain. If Mary Kay’s eye shadow is applied with water and a brush, when it dries to a powder, it dries fairly intact and has extremely minimal flaking. That’s the good news. The bad news is that if it is applied dry, it is distressingly light in color. If it is applied with water, it is darker, but it then highlights every bit of wrinkled skin! I look like a decorated lizard in this eye shadow.
My next try was Jafra’s liquid foundation (www.Jafra.com). It went on finer and smoother than the Mary Kay foundation. It still showed some of my lines and wrinkles, but not as badly. However I wasn’t entirely satisfied. I could look in the mirror and see that I had foundation on. There had to be a finer pigmentation out there. Jafra’s eye shadow didn’t improve my eye area any better than Mary Kay’s had so I moved on.
My next try was a QVC product called Elastology (www.qvc.com). At the time, it was the best thing I’d found yet, although the price was a little intimidating! Their Clientele 2-piece Face the Day Foundation Kit (which says “with patented Sacred Lotus Seed Extract” but which feels like it has a silicone base for smoothness) sells for $37.50 plus shipping and handling. This gives the purchaser both a base coat (in a bottle with a plunger-style top so you can just push and a set amount comes out) and a bottle of foundation with a plunger-style top also. This is offered in very light, light, medium and tan.
The base coat ,which feels like it has silicone in it, and will smooth out your facial skin so that when you apply the foundation, it feels rather like applying foundation to a sheet of glass. Not as hard, but as slick! The result, if you carefully smooth it out to eliminate any streaks, provides fairly good coverage which is much finer than either Jafra or Mary Kay’s foundation. I didn’t buy eye shadow offered by QVC, by the way.
Okay, but I wasn’t satisfied yet. I wanted THE BEST in foundation and eye shadow. Next I tried bareMinerals brand of Bare Escentuals. This too is a QVC product. Pure crushed minerals, with no additives, binders, preservatives, or fragrances . Hey, they sold me! I watched the models being made up and noted that they had someone around my own age. She looked great! So I chose from the fair, fairly light, light, medium beige, medium, tan, dark, medium tan, and deep colors. QVC is good about often running specials and giving you lovely extras if you buy a product during the time it is being showcased. So when I called to order, I signed up for an auto-ship deal which gave me a much better price on the cosmetics. I went for the eye shadow also, figuring it wasn’t much good if I had a younger looking face, and crepe-like eyes!
It was fun trying out the bareMinerals powders on my face. A little goes a long ways! No wonder the containers were doll-sized! Applying the mineral foundation was quicker and easier than applying liquid foundation, although the powder tended to go all over the counter. This stuff needs to be applied with a “Kabuki” brush. It is a big, fat, soft brush which gives you better coverage and smooths and evens out the powder foundation, which is almost lighter than air. Poof, poof, poof, it goes everywhere. But it is so fine that it doesn’t tend to settle into, nor accentuate fine wrinkles in the skin.
After nearly 30 days using the bareMinerals make-up, I was not entirely happy with that either, and returned it and canceled the auto-ship program for it. It was not fine enough on my skin, and made a mess on the counter. You tilt a tiny bit into the lid, then swirl with the brush. Some pops over the rim of the lid and flies around. Messy.
My last cosmetic try was Jane Iredale, and I’m home to stay with that product line! If you haven’t been able to tell by now, I’m picky when it comes to my cosmetics! I don’t want to face the world in a mask of foundation, nor advertise every new wrinkle. It’s no fun to makeup your face, then have to clean up the sink and counter every single day. Phooey!
This time, I played it safe, and found a source of Jane Iredale makeup in my town (Pat Warren’s Faces Unlimited, in Portland, Oregon) which had the complete line. They also have a website which sells their products (www.facesunlimited.com). I booked an appointment and paid to have my makeup professionally done. If I wasn’t completely satisfied, I wasn’t buying the stuff! If you want to go directly to Jane Iredale’s website, it is www.JaneIredale.com.
My initial reservations over the young woman who was doing my makeup (after all, what could this young darling with the dyed fire-engine-red hair know about wrinkles!) turned to joy as my face lost at least 10 years under her skillful hands. Stare as I might, I couldn’t see makeup clinging to high spots, or accumulating in how spots. I looked great!
So back home I went, clutching my big new bag of makeup, and a “cheat sheet” reminding me what to put where and how to do it. Since Faces Unlimited sells the same products that some of the movie stars use, I figured I was in good company. In addition to my Jane Iredale cosmetics, I had containers of DeCleor products. The morning and night use of the Iris Oil, Iris Night Balm, and Vitaroma Lift took years off my eye region, and removed a scar on my cheek where a huge mole had been removed.
The scar was still red and angry looking when I went in for my makeup session (Jane Iredale Circle/Delete concealer to the rescue). With the Jane Iredale makeup, the scar was not noticeable! I had tried a veritable host of products to heal that darn scar, but none had worked. It was a shock to look in the mirror one morning and realize that after using my new products every day for three months, the scar was gone entirely! I had become so used to putting some concealer on it, that I didn’t notice the scar had been shrinking until one morning it was simply not there at all to put any concealer on! This happened with use of the facial products, and no special attention to the scar area which just got what the rest of my cheeks got.
The Jane Iredale pure pressed base foundation is the best foundation that I’ve ever used and I’d fight to keep it! It comes in a metal compact case which has a mirror inside and includes a round applicator sponge. Ignore the sponge! It is for emergency use away from home only. The foundation should be applied with a “Kabuki” brush. Swirl, pat off the excess, then apply to the face. It is fast, looks like a million dollars, and stays put! The one downside if there is any, is that the Jane Iredale company does not sell replacements for their lovely metal compact. When you need more foundation, you have to purchase another compact.
Jane Iredale’s eye shadow is just as fabulous. Her khaki color is my favorite. This eye shadow floats over your eye skin, minimizing the fine wrinkles. Brush it gently on, and watch your eyes roll back the year!. It’s a shock to one’s system to remove your makeup prior to going to bed. Now I know how one of those poor fairy tale characters feels when they are “normal” by day and turn into something less lovely by night! Yeah, the transformation is that good.
I have to admit that having the right makeup brush for the right cosmetic is very important! You don’t need a huge fistful of brushes, but to use this sort of mineral powder foundation, you simply MUST have a “Kabuki” brush. It is also very helpful to get a long-handled brush to apply eye color, and a separate long-handled brush to apply concealer. You will save a lot of money in the long run if you buy very good quality natural bristle brushes that can be washed (What? You’re asking me…you wash your brushes?) Yup. It is necessary. Would you rather buy new and stand the expense on a regular basis, or wash what you have? Inexpensive brushes often tend to either smell funny or lose their bristles after washing. Good quality brushes will survive a gentle bath just fine and will work far better than if they remained clogged with old makeup, which would make the fresh makeup go on sort of gloppy and uneven.
The more we age, the more we need a little help from our friends (the makeup industry). Get yourself a magnifying mirror on a stand (or a wall-mount) and some Jane Iredale makeup and show the world how great you can really look! The finest cosmetics ever manufactured are available now. You won’t believe the difference! Now all you need is a new dress!
