Makeup has really become my own personal therapy over the past few years, a time during each day where I can focus a bit on doing something just for myself. Andy was showing one of his former coworkers some of my makeup looks a couple months ago (it’s a sweet spot in any day to know my honey loves and supports what I do enough to show it off to others), and she asked how long it takes me. So he e-mailed me that question, and I responded back 20 to 60 minutes, with the average being 40. 60 minutes is a great day where I’ve got him to help out with Tony. 20 minutes is a chaotic day where I’m running behind. Today’s makeup was somewhere in between (but closer to the running behind side), and it took me 30 minutes. And that included brushing my teeth, applying my eye cream, and minimal eyebrow filling.

The person he shared this with indicated that she thought that was a short period of time given some of what I do. I can’t speak to what is normal for anyone else, but I can share a few of the things that I do to keep my process flowing quicker. None of this is going to be delivered as prosaic greatness, it’s just a quickly typed set of explanations. First, I think about what I’m going to do for my eye makeup either the night before or when I am taking my shower. So, having a vision in my mind helps me to move quicker, because once I decide what I want to do I already know what products, brushes, and supplies I’m going to need.

Next, if I know I want a sharp line (and I often do because makeup is about illusions, and this one combats some mild age-related eye skin droop) I am going to take some scotch tape and line it up from the bottom of my eyelid up diagonally towards the end of my eyebrow. I will apply my shadows up top, remove the tape, and then reapply any primer as needed to the bottom lids. I often use that line formed by the tape as a guide for how to angle any lining I do on my upper lids. I often use a dark eye shadow for this.

If I am not using tape, sometimes it might take me longer because I have to be more careful about my lines, but I tend to go for a softer look when I do. I also do my eyes first because when there is fallout, and their often is, it will ruin the base makeup on your upper cheeks if you can’t “bake,” (and no woman over 40 should), requiring extra time to fix. I will often clean up any left over eye primer and fallout from the eye shadow just by smudging it off and around as I am applying my foundation primer.

Many people use a wipe or micellar water to do this, I just feel like that’s not really an extra step that’s necessary unless there’s a lot of foiled shimmer fallout or glitter (because most mattes are going to blend into the primer and be visually undetectable at that point, but for sure any small amount of residual color smeared in the primer would be covered by the time the foundation is on). So it saves me time to do that. And I will use the sweeping motion of my finger as I am applying the primer under my eyes to clean up any lines I want to on my eye shadow.

The next thing I do is definitely not Wayne Goss approved (he has recommended buffing in small amounts of foundation and layering it), but this works for me and it’s fast. The foundation I use is Maybelline Dream Urban (I like the performance of the IT CC foundation it is a dupe for better, but that product makes me break out). You need to get all of the coverage you want on with this foundation in one quick shot before it starts to dry because it’s going to not look so pretty if you try to layer it.

So, I tend to mix a shade based on how much sun I’m getting, so I keep 4 different foundation colors on hand. One of the quicker ways of doing this for me is to lay down the darker shades in areas of my foundation I want to be darker. Some people do something similar by applying contouring under their foundation, but I don’t really want that intense of a process or dramatic of a change in the lines on my face, so I do this. I will quickly blend it all out using a brush, and then pounce a makeup sponge over it so that any excess is absorbed and it appears a bit more cohesive with my skin texture.

The last point I want to touch on is products. Sometimes your products can do the work for you which can save time, but often you’ll pay a much higher price for that. And sometimes, you can find quality products at lower price points. Sometimes it takes experience with brands to know which formulas you like to work with and which you don’t. And often, I use multiple brands in one eye look because I have something specific in mind color-wise that isn’t going to be found in an individual palette. I tend to prefer using eyeshadows I know are going to blend well without too much fuss because I don’t have the time to mess with minimizing patchiness.

Each of these three similar looks is created with different products at different price points. Can you tell enough of a difference from the pictures to say which one was high end eyeshadow? Which eyeshadow cost the least? Which ones were easiest to work with? Read on for a break down.

Picture 1: Colourpop by the rosé palette, cheapest, $14. Super easy to work with, the lid shimmer is my favorite of the three different brands used for this particular look. Not all colourpop palettes perform as well as this one, so buyer beware! Just because you love working with one palette from a brand doesn’t mean you’ll love the way all of their products work.

Picture 2: Blended Girl Cosmetics, $27. This palette isn’t currently available. I didn’t really have a problem with the way the mattes blended, I really liked the color story for a warm neutral palette, and I liked all but one of the shimmers (which was hard pressed and more difficult to build up and I ended up needing to pull in a highlighter from a different brand to get the effect I wanted).

Picture 3: Charlotte Tilbury, 2 different palettes used, over $200 worth of product at regular price- I bought mine on sale. Blends on like the kind of dream that makes you warm and happy when it comes to the mattes. This formula is definitely friendly to someone who doesn’t have a lot of experience blending out eye shadows, and might only want one “go to” palette. But to get the depth and shades I wanted, I needed more than one palette. And at the end of the day, the colourpop one is close in terms of performance quality.

So…it’s all about what you are willing to pay for if you want this kind of look, but you don’t need to pay a lot to get a neutral look with brands that blend well. And products that you find easy to work with are critical to moving through your makeup quickly. But If you want bright, dramatic colors, not every brand does those well and most drug store brands won’t deliver there. Which is why next week we’re going to take a dive into why I tend to prefer the indie brands for eyeshadow.