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Thursday, November 4, 2010

Cream Eye Shadows and Kimbap

I am not an eyeshadow pro.  In fact, I'm pretty stoopid when it comes to eye shadow application.  If I do too much I feel self conscious.  Maybe it comes from growing up with my monlids and having people apply eye shadow for my "Asian eyes" by painting on a large fake crease on my eyelid.  So instead I rely on black eyeliner and mascara to define my eyes.  Eye shadow is more a background.  

I love cream eye shadows.  They rocked my world when I first discovered them.  So quick and easy to apply!  I think my first was a cheapo Revlon one that I used for a while in college.  I soon upgraded to Shiseido Hydro-Powder Eye Shadow (H3 - Tiger Eye and H9 - Glistening Sand).  I tried dabbling in some others a while back but usually stayed true to my Shiseido, until recently...

So below is my current collection of cream eye shadows.  I tried Clinique's at some point but wasn't too impressed and ended up giving it away or junking it when I moved.  So below are the following: Dior Eye Show in 622 Undressed Beige; Shu Uemura cream eye shadow in beige, brown, taupe and pink; Shiseido Hydro-Powder Eye Shadow in H3 Tiger Eye and H9 Glistening Sand; Benefit Cosmetics Creaseless Cream Shadow in Flatter Me and Birthday Suit.

Here's the Shiseido.  
As you can tell I use the Tiger Eye way more than the Glistening Sand.  Glistening Sand is pretty but too light for me.  The texture is great and so easy to apply.  I've had this forever and used it practically every day and I'm convinced this must be a never ending pot.  The only downside to Shiseido is that there aren't that many color options that I like.  There are a lot of bright or cool colors if you're into that.  But I'm a boring neutral-ish girl.  So I stuck with Shiseido for a while but I also yearned for more!


And so I moved onto Shu Uemura.  I must confess that with the help of a friend I became hooked to the Shu counter at Barneys in New York until Shu decided to abandon all of us in the US (boo!).  And so during one of those crazy makeup events I bought a bunch of the cream eye shadows after trying one to get that amazing gift bag.  And the colors looked soooo beautiful, see!
Sidenote: I never thought of taupe as being so dark!  I always imagine taupe to be more like a light tan with a slight purple undertone.  The same friend who got me hooked on Shu is also convinced that I'm color blind. 


So the Shu look amazing but ugh I'm sad to say that they totally suck.  First off they're weirdly hard and so when you swipe your finger across it you just slide right across barely picking up anything.  The texture is very dry.  The texture wouldn't even bother me if the color showed up better and if it was easier to blend.  But once you get it on it doesn't budge much without a lot of rubbing which is bad for the eye area!  I guess that may be good in some ways too because that means it'll last but that doesn't mean much if you have weird dark streaks on your eyelids that you can't blend in. AND, those screw top lids are the worst!  They're impossible to screw on straight so you end up fumbling with it as the tops spin maddeningly around until they roll onto the floor, making you all the later for work.


So after my disastrous Shu experience I went back to my Shiseido for a while.  Then with the recent Sephora Friends & Family sale I decided to finally try the Benefit and Dior cream eye shadows that I kept hearing about and seeing great reviews on.  


Here's Benefit.
The colors are so beautiful.  At first I was a little troubled by the texture because it almost felt oily to me.  But it's not, it's smooth and creamy and wonderful.  And both colors should be called Flatter Me because they are soooo flattering and impossible to mess up.  Oh and lastly they are so easy to apply and blend.  LOVE.


Here's Dior Eye Show in Undressed Beige
I am slowly but surely becoming a Dior addict.  Yeah it costs a lot but you are really paying for higher quality.  Look at that beautiful color and texture!  I'm in love with the texture of this.  It's not so much a cream, but a mousse.  Delightfully light, incredibly flattering, easy to apply and blend.  Wonderful.  The color is pretty light though so I feel like it doesn't show up on me that well.  But I use it as a neutral wash on my lid and then use one of my darker cream shadows or even one of my powder shadows closer to the lashline.  Sephora only had this one color available but I think I may take a look at some other shades elsewhere.

And here are swatches of all the colors.  Do you like the labels?  I decided to go high tech for this one haha!
And a very important step in eye makeup application, for both eye shadow and eyeliner (especially for oily eyelids and/or monolids) is primer.  I was not a believer for a long time but I have now seen the light.  I use Nars and really like it but I've also heard good things about the Urban Decay one.
It comes in a tube and is easy to apply.
 Here is a dab of it on my thumb palm.
A quick light dab/rub and it's completely disappeared into my skin.  But it's wonderfulness is secretly embedded in my skin, doing its job of keeping my eye makeup in place and the colors true.
Oh and the other part of this post title is about this wonderful Korean food called kimbap.  It's a roll filled with random things that vary depending on who is making it.  My mom always made hers with spinach, egg, pickled radish and oddly enough (but oh so right), hot dogs.  Sometimes she throws in some fake crab meat.  Oooooh yeah.  It sounds weird but it's so good!  I used to love lingering in the kitchen as my mom whooped out her little bamboo mat and squashed all of this into a delicious roll.  Then as she cut it up in pieces, I'd eat the messy end pieces (because they weren't pretty enough to plate!) and plate the rest in neat little tiers.  Usually I'd eat more than I plated (hey, a lot of them were loose and messy so I had to eat them before they fell apart!).  My mom made some again yesterday for the first time in a long time.  Yum!
Ever since I came back from traveling for work my pug has been so needy.  Sometimes I'll be trying to use my computer and she has the audacity to barge onto my lap.  Look at her!
And she's developed the weird habit of going on my lap, facing me and then pushing her paws against my chest as she gazes up at me.  It's a bit creepy.  But I also kind of love it.
I was only able to complete this post because she was sleepy and so she couldn't distract me.  Sleepy, stinky lil pug.


So to sum up:
(1) Yay cream eye shadows (some more than others)!
(2) Yum kimbap!
(3) Crazy lil loveable stinky pug.

The end.

1 comment:

  1. I really like Nars' Soft touch pencils. Right now I have Hollywoodland. For eyeshadow base, I love Laura Mercier. And I usually throw just a touch of Laura M's Secret Brightening Powder on my lids to keep every thing in place.

    Man, pugs and makeup. I think I'm in heaven!

    ♥♥♥
    Meredith (of Meredith & Scarlet)

    ReplyDelete