Now this, is a loaded question. I’ve been hitting up a bunch of warehouse sales back in late 2018 until now, so I have a lot of products that are essentially in my makeup bag. However, for the sake of keeping this article reasonable, I’ll be excluding any unopened products and I’ll focus exclusively on products that I’ve used within the past month. Ready to find more products to love?
First off, I actually have a primer that I sort-of liked when I first bought it. But after a while now, I find that it’s rather unforgiving for those with bumpy or dry skin. The Face Shop’s Velvet Skin Primer is a mattifying and sort-of blurring primer that I’d say is similar to Smashbox’s famous Photo Finish Primer, but you’d need to have exfoliated prior to use or it will cling to everything. I also find that after a few hours it gets taken over by how oily I usually am and I find that the foundation on the tip of my nose starts separating.
Despite some of these bad points, I still end up using the primer but only on my cheeks and forehead. But if I’m in a rush I actually tend to use Laneige’s Water Bank Moisture cream, because it smooths everything out while moisturizing the skin.
Moving on, I’ve been switching between two foundations lately. They’re both about the same in terms of coverage, with one being more sheer than the other by a smidge. One is The Face Shop’s Miracle Finish Cushion, and the other is Innisfree’s My Foundation in 2.2 N22 Medium Beige. I use the cushion a lot more if I’m going to school and I want to cover up some redness, but the My Foundation I use when I’m going out because they both last a long while. However I do want to note that the cushion doesn’t work well with powder blush, it will stick in the one place your brush touches and refuse to blend.
I rarely use concealer in conjunction with b.b cream, so I actually only have one. It’s The Face Shop’s Liquid Veil Concealer, and I like the formula. It’s thick but also blend-able and build-able concealer, but as I recall, the shades are very limited. However, just to note that it’s been discontinued.
Originally, I was using Nyx’s highlight and contour duo in Universal for the longest time. However I always thought it was a little odd on me and I’d end up blending it out a lot just to make it not too orange-like. I only figured out later on that some contours have an orange look and then I also got the contour stick from The Face Shop. For half of the year, I use the contour stick from TFS and for the other half I mix a little of each for a warmer but more natural look.
I originally had one blush to start with from Shop Miss A, however for some reason with both my b.b cream and foundation (old one) it would stay where it was applied and not blend out. I use that occasionally now with the innifree foundation which is much better, but for more natural looks I go with Holika Holika’s gudetama jelly dough blusher in Grapefruit.
I’m actually surprised to say this but I only technically use one highlighter. The one on the Nyx duo I don’t use at all since trying it a few times back when I first bought it because it just smudges most of my base makeup and then causes my skin to become oily much faster. The highlight I have is Nyx’s Duo Chromatic Illuminating Powder in Snow Rose, and it’s really good. It can look natural or be amped up pretty easily so I have nothing bad to say about it.
For brows, I like a natural look and I’m not confident in using pomades or etc yet so don’t really expect to see them yet. However I use the Designing Eyebrow Pencil from TFS in 06 (dark grey). Nothing much to say about it really, since I haven’t tried another brow product yet.
I flit between 4 eye shadows mainly, Dear Dahlia’s dual palette in Sunset Romance and Aritaum’s Shine fix eyes in no.22. As well as two from Etude House’s lines. They’re nice and natural colours and one is a very glittery pink.
For the longest time, I had used Nyx’s mattifying spray to set my foundation. It works well and it would take hours before oil would appear along the oilier parts of my face. However, recently I bought BareMineral’s Matte and Glow setting powder kit from a warehouse sale. I’ve been using it since then on certain days because it can last almost a whole day before my face starts looking oily again.
Finally, the lip products! Which kind of seems to be the ones I have the most of. Typically I don’t use any lip products when I’m going to school, but when I’m going out I use Peripera’s airy ink velvet in Elf Rose, or TFS’s lipstick (I forgot the name and shade number sorry…).
Anyways if you see this late, I will be postponing the blog post on May 29th until June 1st to finish up school stuff for now. And I please let me know if you want a more in depth review for any of the products listed above!
