Everyone raves about X, so why don’t we?
Categorized with Miscellaneous • tagged with
“Makeup” encompasses a LOT of stuff. Eyeshadows, eyeliners, mascaras, blushes, rouges, face color, brow colorant, lip sticks, lip glosses, lip liners, primers, fixatives, foundations, concealers, correctors… And then there are the tools! Brushes, applicators, spray-applications, wands, puffs, sponges…the list goes on. The good part about that is that there is choice. If item A doesn’t work for you, maybe item B will. If Brand 1’s foundation doesn’t give you the look you want, Brand 2’s might work a treat. If you dislike using brushes, you can use sponge applicators. And so on.
What items have people raved about that you tried…and they just did not work for you? Leave a comment! I’m curious to see why things didn’t work out for folks, or what folks may have tried but found lacking. With all the blatant trendism, it’s easy to get caught up in the “buy it” fever - but then be hugely let down when you just don’t love the thing as much as many others.
Just a few guidelines, though.
It's too easy to bash a company. In some cases, far too easy. (Like "fish, barrel, loaded gun" easy.) So instead of saying something like "X company has crap photography and nothing was as described" or "Everything from Brand Q is a total ripoff because you're just paying for the name" or "Foo type of applicators hold contaminents and so are inherently inferior" or "The only people in the world who only ever need SPF 15 are Glaswegian shut-ins, so all the SPF claims in foundation are sheer hype", give us all a solid reason why the product didn't work for you, or why you decided not to try it. Examples might be:
- The colors were too sheer/too heavy/too blackened/too grainy/too crumbly for me.
- I didn't feel like I had enough control using foo applicators/I couldn't get the precision/coverage I wanted.
- I can get very similar products from another vendor, and they're less expensive/they actually ship to my country without exhorbitant charges.
No sales pitches. I don't think that this will be a problem with most of the folks who visit this site; but in the event that marketing gurus for Company X or Brand Y come on over and find this post...take your marketing and go elsewhere, per favore. For this reason I will also not be including any links in folks' comments. I'll leave the brand and site names intact, but just edit out any HTML linking capabilities.
For me, one of the biggest cases of beauty-product "meh" was Urban Decay's Primer Potion. I bought the UD Hall of Fame kit, knowing full well that the lip gloss and the eye pencil would not be getting any love from me; but I was fairly curious to try the primer potion which is so highly-praised all over the place. I found that while it does apply easily, is inexpensive, and does hold the loose-powder pigments in place...it does its job perhaps a bit too well. I couldn't blend the colors the way I wanted, and would either have to gain lots of extra levels in eyeshadow blending before I could get the look I wanted, or would have to apply a thin layer of powder over the UDPP and under my eyeshadows (to lessen the primer's "grab" on the pigments and give them more blendability.) There were some other things that I didn't love; but initially I thought I might be able to use this on those days when I was going for a no-color base. Sadly, this didn't seem to work out - and so after about 30 uses, I threw out my bottle of Urban Decay Primer Potion. I know that others love it, it works great for them, they're incredibly happy with the product...it's just not for me.
So what have been some of your makeup disappointments? What products did you use instead, and why?
