Recently I have been blessed to be able to correspond via e-mail with someone else who has blogged, and she told me that my content is “very raw and real.” I try always to be real about what is going on, I want to be here in meaningful ways that only the truth can accomplish for the people who might need to hear about the types of experiences we are having, but the truth is my writing has many dampers. Memories that have been dimmed and turned down with only fragments put on display, hurts that have been muted so that they wouldn’t turn my wounded heart strings into weapons with which to strangle others on the internet.

Even with those dampers, my fingers can race along these keys, pulling words from my mind and shaping them into imagery vivid enough to evoke what it feels like to regularly have the skin ripped off of every emotion you have on a daily basis. Sometimes that isn’t a great fit emotionally for the reading needs of my loved ones who read with us each week. Just a month ago my children lost their grandmother, my husband and his fabulous siblings their mother…and I think perhaps even I am not feeling like, in returning to writing this week, that I am ready to be quite as “raw and real.”

Therapists who work with our family in public settings already know this about me, I am random sometimes and easily distractible by so many details and things. Shopping with me is kind of like being out with the dog from the movie “Up,” except innumerable other things are chased after instead of squirrels. This week is going to seem incredibly random and off-topic to most of our readers…it’s not a permanent direction shift for our blog, more like a brief but emotionally necessary detour. BCBA1 and our ABA team will have many posts dedicated to what is happening with that part of the therapy team next month. Even next week I will start walking a bit more towards the more serious sides of life, but for this week- “SQUIRREL!”

So, some of you may remember that my fabulous sisters-in-law (and Amara…many thanks to all of you again for that compliment!) felt like I should start a YouTube channel for makeup. Totally not happening any time soon. They wanted to know how I do what I do, and I referred everybody to a couple of applicable channels because I don’t have the time to do step by step for all of my processes. And, truthfully, I think Halloween is the only time I could picture any of these wonderful women wearing the amount and style of makeup that I do.

That being said, there are a couple of things I do differently from what I have seen on beauty YouTube, and one of them helps me solve some of the challenges that can exist in applying powdery eye shadows to maturing eyelids (for those of you who don’t know, I am 45 and definitely have some of those problems to solve)…and I’m going to be going over that eye trick today for the sweet family I married into, any other woman reading my blog headed into their middle ages or beyond, or anyone who just wants to chuckle and cackle at tiny snippets of my pasty self with partial makeup. Everybody else, I am so sorry, this post might not be your cup of tea and you can click off without offending me- I promise!

So, for those of you still hanging in there on this one, let me start off by emphasizing a point that some of you may have discovered: as you age, powdery face products are definitely not your friends. They will generally age your skin years within a matter of seconds the heavier you apply them. I kind of like Wayne Goss’ philosophy that aging is natural and we should embrace that more in beauty, but generally in our society we don’t…and I realize I don’t watch every video he produces, but I don’t see even him saying that any of us should do something that makes us look even older (outside of a theatrical production of course). I know grammatically that was way too many negatives in one sentence, please don’t come for me, this post will already be long enough without a grammar quest. I’m absolutely not going to be giving up bright eye shadows anytime soon, and generally the best, most vivid shades come in super powdery mattes. So this is how I personally get away with applying copious amounts of powder to my eyelids:

MOISTURIZE those lids with an eye cream…A LOT. Even before you apply your makeup. And then, put a very small amount of Maybelline Baby Skin primer on your lids and the area just under your eyes. If you put too much on, you run the risk of creasing, so pay attention to the amount shown on my finger and use that per eye. Then, put a cream eye shadow in a tone similar to your skin over that (this provides the advantage of allowing you to do less work with whatever eye shadows you are using when a simpler/more natural look is desired), then fairy dust it with just a small amount of beige powder to set it down. When I say fairy dust, I mean a small amount that just barely kisses your cream products, because you want the primer and the cream shadow to be able to soak up whatever colored powder products you lay down. The pore primer keeps the cream product from getting too goopy in the looser folds of your skin (and fills in some things), while extending the moisturizing capabilities of the cream based product.

As long as you don’t pack on a hefty number of layers of eye shadow, the end result will look like you were working with either a cream or a cream to matte, which minimizes the aging effects of the powder products. However, I also recommend spraying a fine mist of a good setting spray over the eye shadows when they are done, this will help any excess powder melt better into your skin and give it some extra life. My favorite for this is Urban Decay All Nighter.

I am using ColourPop’s cream shadows currently when I do this particular trick, but this does also work with Mac paint pot. Here’s the thing though: ColourPop’s is significantly cheaper, but the texture isn’t quite as nice…and it appears, since ColourPop is no longer stocking this on their own website, that this particular cream shadow is being discontinued (though it is still available online only at Ulta). This technique is going to play well with a cream eye shadow base, but bear in mind if you branch out to trying this with other products, you are playing chemistry on your eyes and this won’t work well with many other types of primers.

You can also use the Baby Skin primer with Elf’s putty primer for the eyes, but it will cause a little bit of extra crinkling with the skin as the product dries that cream shadows won’t. Also, while the overall effect isn’t bad, it isn’t as effective at minimizing the appearance of aging related texture as a cream shadow base will be. In general, I don’t love Elf’s putty primer as a stand alone base because the shadows can stick too much to it, making them harder to blend- but using the Baby Skin primer and a dusting of powder does help reduce that problem. The pictures for my demonstration of this are going to be used to discuss how I think most of my sisters-in-law will prefer to apply either product in the use of creating more natural eye shadow looks.

I am now briefly going to go through some other eye base options you can find at our local Ulta and why I either do or don’t recommend them for aging eye lids, and then I am going to give a few other pieces of general eye shadow use advise for those of us committing to aging without blepharoplasty.

Just concealer with the Baby Skin: don’t even go there, it will over-emphasize texture on your eyelids, crease in under two hours, and your colors will fade. You will notice that I am using a white concealer in this picture, that is because I am working with pastels, and if you want those to show up vividly, a white eye base is necessary. The downside for any white base is that unless you are planning on taking colored eye shadow all the way up to your brow, you will need to have an eye shadow that matches your skin tone to place over it on places not covered by your other eye shadows.

Urban decay primer potion: hate it and you might want to consider avoiding it if you are my age or above. My sister and I had the same father- I swear!- but sometimes I don’t think you can tell…she got the genetics that called for a light golden skin that doesn’t sunburn so much. I somehow inherited mostly transparent (to the point that when I was in high school, people used to tease me by saying I was the invisible woman because of how readily my veins can be traced through my skin) that mostly burns, blisters, and peels…and leaves me pasty pale after shedding all that burned nastiness. Years of sun damage has finally produced a golden hint on my arms…a hint. But I have veins in my eyelids that I want to cover, and primer potion is transparent. Eye shadows applied over any discoloration, such sunspots or veins, on your lids will look mottled and blotchy. Also, it makes the eye skin pucker and crinkle in a way that adds ten years to my eyes. Literally I feel like it makes my lids look like a piece of paper that got crumpled up when normally that isn’t how they look. Unless you have opaque and fully plumped and firm eyelids, I can’t recommend this primer.

ABH: not bad, I like it well enough to use it sometimes. The grip is fabulous, but it will give you the appearance of more texture than either Baby Skin with a cream product or my Juvia’s Place primer. The downsides for this product are the cost and the stark white color…if you are using this, you want to pat it down into a thin layer and give it a minute or two to set down, it does not need to be set with powder.

Juvia’s Place Prep/Prime Primer: LOVE it. The price point is good, especially for the amount of product, and it will hold everything I put on my lids in place for the entire day of every crazy thing I am doing, including working out. Generally I use a thicker layer than many makeup artists will recommend, in part this is because the product can get a bit streaky in a thinner layer (which I don’t like for evenness of application, and if I want to use a thin layer I will pat on a tiny bit more in places that have thinned out), but whether it is thick or thin, this has a creaminess to it that will soak up a ton of powder on the eyelids without causing any sort of extra crinkling.

Placing the eye shadows: You want to look down and have your eye closed tight when you are putting color in your crease. This will help hold the skin firmer, which will reduce areas with uneven color application. If you have a lot of extra skin, you may even want to life up on the side of your eye while you are applying. Many of us as we age get a bit of a downward trending flap of skin. You can create an illusion that lifts your eyes up by having your color go up in a diagonal from the end of your eye to the end of your eyebrow…and this can be done effectively with very natural color placement also. And, if you’re not afraid to go dark, that will create a bit of an illusion in the crease that seems to wipe out that flap altogether 😉

Also, if you are going bold on the eyes, in general, the darker your lipstick is, the more it will compete as the focal point of your face. So if you want people to notice the drama on your eyes first, go with a lighter lipstick. Also, I recommend doing your eyes first before your face makeup. As you age, any powder in the area under your eyes will age that skin in a very undead sort of way, and unless that’s what you’re going for, the only way to not ruin your foundation and under eye concealer when eyeshadow fallout occurs is to put a heavy coating of powder on that area. For minimally or unset under eye makeup, that eye shadow will stick and bleed into the other makeup in ways that will not look so pretty (if that is your aim) and will be harder to fix.

A general note about other products: if you are a family member or a friend, and you want to know my thoughts on brands, you can send me a private message and I will give you my thoughts based on your needs/makeup preferences…and if you live close enough, you can come visit me some morning and play with my eye shadows to see which ones you prefer yourself.

And, since we are in the Halloween season, I am going to leave you all with a link to a video I saw recently that I think does a great job of explaining some basics for more Halloween specific makeup application. I love this particular makeup artist’s channel, she and I have a similar aesthetic…which may not be your aesthetic. And that’s OK. However you style yourself daily or for Halloween, I hope that some of this has helped! Much Love, Ari

Ewa Makeup Artist, Halloween Makeup Basics, click on the beginning of the sentence for a link.