I've been on the high-end makeup bandwagon since December 2005. Why do I remember this do clearly? It was Christmas time and for some ungodly reason, I thought it was a GREAT idea to go to Oakbrook Mall for some reason. To this day, I cannot remember why I went to the mall, but I went to the mall at Christmas time and walked through Macy's.
While zig-zagging my way to get out of the department store formally known as Marshall Fields, I was accosted by a gal from the Benefit Cosmetic counter. At this point in time, all I knew about makeup was what I had taught myself through trial and error as a teenager. I bought drugstore stuff because then I didn't have to deal with sales people and it was easy to get my hands on. I was a big fan of Almay, hated L'Oreal lipstick, and wore a lot of random mascaras. I'd been to Ultra a few times, but still only bought stuff from the drugstore brands. I didn't even realize they had high-end stuff until I was twenty-five.
But, I digress, I was fighting my way out of the Macy's at Christmas when a woman commented on my eyebrows. She liked them. She thought she could help me make them look better.
I eyed her, wondering why she would tweeze my eyebrows, as at this point in time I was literally the only female person I knew who didn't pluck, wax, or thread her eyebrows. I did nothing to them. Literally nothing. They simply existed above my eyes and I refused to tweeze them, wax them, or thread them. They were dark, thick, and perfect in my eyes.
"You see, you've got a great base to work with. Nice thick brows, good color, but if we use this," she paused to grab the product she wished to show me, "they could be even better."
She did not hold out tweezers, but rather a compact filled with brown powder and wax. I knitted the glorious eyebrows together.
"Here, sit. I'll show you."
"There will be no tweezing, right?"
"No, of course not. Do you tweeze your eyebrows?"
"No. I do nothing to them."
"Well, sit. I'll show you how to accent them."
I sat. She accented. I looked amazing. She gave me some awesome color in my cheeks. I looked even more amazing. I ended up buying the Brow-Zing and High Beam, the cheek highlighter the woman used. I wanted everything but opted on the two things I did not actually own.
It was more money than I'd ever spent on makeup at once, but man was it worth it.
It also started my downward spiral into buying all high-end makeup.
Six months later, I wound up buying Dior lip products. Some lipgloss and liner cost more than my two Benefit products and the woman who did my makeup had no clue how to apply mascara as I looked like I had little spiders for eyelashes. (I should have guessed because that's how her mascara looked.) I really didn't totally switch over until the fall of 2009. I was living at home with my parents. I needed new mascara (I never use a tube for more than three months after the massive eye infection of 2008) and couldn't find Max Factor anywhere. I was about to just give up and go to Sephora and spend too much money on a tube of mascara that I'd never finish when I remembered the existence of Ultra.
They did not have Max Factor either, but they did have a travel size tube of Benefit's BADgal Lash. I'd liked it when the woman those many moons had used it on me, and the travel sized tube was the same price as Max Factor, so I got it. Honestly, unless you're a heavy mascara user, get a travel sized tube. I still only use tubes for three months, and even the travel sized ones I never use all of it, but I cannot remember the last time I actually paid for mascara.
Yeah, that's right. I don't really pay for them. Outright. I hoard samples of mascara. I get them with my rewards, I select them as my sample bonus, I always select mascara if offered it for my Birchbox. I've tried almost every kind of mascara out there. There are ones I like (BadGal, Marc Jacobs, Milk, and that's all I can think of off the top of my head) and ones I hate (mostly Two Faced Better than Sex and the other Benefit mascaras.) I've found that price doesn't matter when it comes to mascara, nor does the brush really. It's the formula that matters at the end of the day. I have very fine, thin lashes that I refuse to put extensions on, so the heavier the formula the worse I find the results. The thicker the mascara and fluffier the brush, the more I hate it. You'd think with fine, thin lashes, I'd like some volume, but I like a natural look. I'm currently using Hourglass. It's got a thin brush and the formula is pretty good. Not as good as the various Marc Jacobs I've tried, or the Milk one. The Milk mascara is like the best ever. That weird looking brush got me for a while, but once I figured it out, I fell in love.
Also, I hate waterproof mascara. It flakes like crazy. Especially in Alaska.
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