On the Cheap, Good Makeup on a Budget : Powder Perfect
- AuntieWicked
- Aug 2, 2010
- 8 min read
On the Cheap, Good Makeup on a Budget :
Powder Perfect
by: A.illumi
Since Victorian times powder has been an available choice for full face makeup
(crazily the elizabethian makeup seems to have been kind of a liquid made of the well known white lead and VINEGAR – eww) anyway, Lumi has always considered POWDER – a dry cracking awful thing only meant for stage and old people! Or old people on stage like this:(actually joanna from abfab in a play!) but who wants to look like that being not famous and not in a play???With these fears in tow…it was my mission to locate a powder makeup that I could wear during a long road trip in very hot and busy conditions!
See – lumi’s whole makeup life she has been wearing liquid foundations because of their ease of application and wide variety of color/tint choices. Powder has always seemed so limiting! But in really hot and or humid weather we all know what can happen to the makeup in the bottle and WORSE on your face…hot sticky melting…ewww.Like this poor guy is all hot and sweaty indoors and look at that mess:
Also, my mainstay foundation has been discontinued(more on that rant and the wild since experiments I have been submitting my face to in September)…right now I am mixing several foundations which is all well and good in my home bathroom but not so much out on the trail! I decided to purchase three powders – in hopes that I could stand one! The chosen ones happen to be:
Revlon Photoready – both in light and medium
Covergirl Clean Pressed Powder
, and Neutrogena Mineral Sheers.
And the absolutely shocking thing that I have to reveal is after trying all three of these I am totally convinced that powder makeup does not have to be horrible and limiting! In fact powder can be pretty perfect and a fun and fast way to beat the summer’s heat wave attack on your makeup efforts!
The first powder – Revlon’s Photoready –
This purchase of this was truly a stretch for me because for almost 17 years i have been a covergirl! My view of Revlon has long been that all their products are “too heavy for daywear” and “very thick.” and especially something named PHOTOREADY – seemed like a nightmare thick mask that would have to be removed with a scouring brush – but on the advice of a friend who works in retail beauty – I gave it a go and WOW – how wrong I was! This first time I dusted it on my oily annoyed face over 8 hour work foundation – it actually felt REFRESHNG – almost cooling even! The particles of powder were so tiny and silky soft ! the brush was soft too! It almost felt like all the lovely lush of loose powder but with all the convenience of a compact! After trying it several times OVer my makeup – i decided for the purposes of trying powder only – all by itself and well…this is the picture:
This is actually the SECOND go round of pictures with the just the revlon powder on because the first powder was WAY too light – like OMG IVORY…and kind of messy to get on as just a base!
So I would advise purchasing a couple of skin tones above what your colors in other brands are normally called! Applying the Revlon photoready on a bareface with no base was not so much fun – it danced all around and wanted to be powder all over the place! Still soft and smooth and comfortable but pale and in a need of a base to provide real coverage! And really everyone should keep this in their makeup bag or purse right next to those oil absorbing sheets for quick make-up do-overs!Oh I almost forgot – something that is really important to all lazy make up lovers – how does it wash off? My method is usually straight up showering makeup off – if that doesn’t work the makeup gets knocked down a notch to like special occasions! Revlon Photoready pased that test – most was off from just my face hitting the water and all the rest came off with regular soap and washcloth! Yay for durability when I want it and washability when I am ready for bed!Next I tried – my poor changed formula really driving me batty Covergirl:
The green compact makes the color look really funny when you open it – and in contrast to revlon Photoready this makeup seems to run DARK – I got a medium and it is bronzey orange murky looking in the compact – not pleasant! Then I tried to put it on and my powder pff got kind of stuck in the powder – very much not smooth!! You really have to scrape and pat at the compact to get the powder you want off so u can try and apply it to your face! Scared of all this resistance in the powder I stuck my finger in it and scraped some up to rub between my fingers – I don’t know how to describe it other than it was the consistency of mildew on an old book…grainy…weirdly almost moist(the opposite of what i want in my powder right?) and yet still very hard to smooth…I was altogether not at all excited about putting it on my face but in the name of bloggistic integrity I forged ahead…well slowly forged ahead – because the powder kept gripping my face…but finally after several jerky motions with the puff and my hands trying to blend and smooth…well – finally I ended up with blotchy spots and darkish areas of any areas of my skin that were not super oily…So my t-zone looked great but that’s about it! here’s the pic – they really did not capture the full horror of the blotchy orange old people looking sun spots:
– see around the chin and mouth? like I have dry skin there and so oosh so much dark unsmoothable spottage!
another major downside – after about 2 minutes of this powder on my face I felt like this:
I call this picture – OUCH IT KIND OF HURTS…and it did – it kind of felt like when u leave on of those green suck the dirt out of your pores mus masks on for too long – only this was two minutes and powder…and the final downer causing this powder to get the total BOO! Was when I went into the shower to wash it off…the water rolled off my face in beads! LIke a waxed car...no way! Yes way…I had to whoop out the witch hazel and SCRAPE the stuff off…YUCK! Also any lines or wrinkles or whatever you have will have this stuff settled in them and magnify them about 800x! One might think I would throw this one away but it might be really good for Halloween – like awesome shadows and dark circles – just no kinda pretty daily makeup that’s for sure!
It is fortunate for this article that I actually tried this last one FIRST or I might have quit! It all began actually because when I was complaining about needing makeup to face the HOT – the very beauty wise Auntie Wicked advised me to try some mineral makeup! I know what u are thinking – ooh no – I have already heard about this and I don’t want any big brush and puffy mess of makeup in my bathroom thank you!Believe me, I thought that too – and mostly planned on disregarding auntie’s advice(as us girls are want to do to one another!) until I saw the Neutrogena Mineral sheers – and one of the choices is actually a compact makeup!Powder Three – the final and Champion – Nuetrogena Mineral Sheers Compact Makeup – also gets a commendation for the longest name of a makeup evar!I don’t know how they do it or what is actually different in the formula than regular powder but let me tell you it is FANTASTIC! The sponge smooths right over the powder and jsut enough comes off and then you put it on your face and it GLIDES even though it’s nice and dry like a powder should be! The application ws fast and easy and the coverage was more than any of the other powders without being so matte and dense that you couldn’t still see some natural skin tone! and when i did all the facial aerobics to see how my face felt and looked after two minutes of actually moving it – everything looked and felt great – so I actually wore this one around a whole day playing with son at home:
and to work:– where I am usually only comfortable with maximum makeup coverage!
ready for work less flash:
and even dared to photograph myself after working until 11 p.m. – with no time for a touch up even and the makeup still looked pretty great 12 hours after application!
Also as you can see the Neutrogena stoop up to different lighting beautifully! And I would have LOVED to include this many pictures of the other makeups but too bad to the winner goes the spoils of extra pcitures pimping the product!Oh and NO MAKEUP LINES: which is amazing because I put my makeup on in like five minutes – that is EVERYTHING – so like foundation is usually three minutes – with this – maybe two?
Seriously, Neutrogena Mineral Sheers Compact Makeup makes a great barely noticeable perfect skin tone match daily wear alternative to liquid foundation – whether it”s because you are too hot this summer or because you would like to speed up the makeup routine on busy days! oh yes – applying this is about 5 minutes faster for me than liquid and I don’t have to worry so much about makeup lines – the only and I mean only downside was it did take some shower scrubbing to get it off but not separate makeover remover needed just a little washcloth exfoliation! Truly it seems the lesson the Universe is trying to teach lumi – over and over is that happiness in fashion demands experimentation and change! Don’t limit you wardrobe or makeup tool box! Try new things and incorporate some of them into the war chest!For me Revlon Photoready and OF COURSE Neutrogena Mineral Sheers have one a spot on the bathroom counter – each for their own reasons. and you know what? Don’t be ashamed to have many makeups! People don’t have to be ashamed to have many little tools to do specific jobs…makeup is the same way many different tools for many different wonderful possibilities! And by way of taking her own advice Lumi has been spending LOTS of money on different foundations all of course for the good of being able to review them for YOU! Okay also so I can have more make-ups but like I said – no shame in having the right tools for the job!!
For Visiting and Reading and Stuff!And as always – Lumi and Wicked want to hear form you about anything and everything! Have you tried any makeup powders lately? had a makeup discontinued crisis? Did this article or any of the others help you? Did they give you a headache? we want to know! See : On the Cheap : L’Oreal True Match by Wicked
contact us these ways:Auntie Wicked on facebookAuntie Wicked on forumspringillumi’s e-mail: a_illumination@hotmail.comand of course leave us comments all over the place here!!
HAHAH you thought I was done – you know better!!
Here are some other reviews of the powders:
OkAY FOR rEAl -LUMi over and OUt! – yes yes those are pink wand walkie talkies – i know – amazing – couldn’ve made that the blog…
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