Real Girl Beauty

For every girl who's imagined herself as Lucky Magazine's "Lucky Girl." Or who's conquered her addiction to the bitchier-than-thou style.com forums. Or who reacts every day to her Daily Candy email with the same: "Who can afford that?" Here are some heartfelt health and beauty tips from one Real Girl to another.

Wednesday, March 09, 2005

Fixer Upper!!




As you know, Real Girl has some beauty pet peeves. You can scroll down and see one of them now—in the form of Pat Benatar’s 80’s Blush Disaster. Her blush brush hit her with its best shot, and then kept slapping her upside the face. Not so cute. Another pet peeve of mine? Lipstick that dries out your lips so badly, they look permanently puckered. What’s the use of having long-lasting color if you constantly want to shove your lips in a vat of Vaseline? Not so cute. But the pet peeve we’ll be talking about here—the one fixed by one glorious, pocket-sized product—is that scraggly, cakey line of eyeshadow that, no matter how fabulous it looked when you put it on, always settles right into the crease of your eyelid. Why, cakey eye shadow line? Why do you just slide in there, hunkering down like you’re paying rent? ‘Cause I’m sorry. There are no extra beds in my eyelid crease.

But, as Real Girl so often says when talking about La Products, there is hope! Over a year ago, while lingering amorously around the Benefit counter at Henri Bendel’s, my gaze came to rest on a tiny cosmetic pot. My interest was piqued. What could be in that wee jar that’s worth $20? Sniffing a possible sale in the air, the lady at the counter scurried over. “Do you see that shine on your eyelids?” she asked me. Then—just to be helpful, thanks a lot—she held a mirror right up to my face. It was summer! It was the end of the day! But yes, there was an unattractive oil slick spilling over my eyelids. Lovely.

“This product has silicone,” Benefit Lady told me, patting a dab of product over my eyelids. Immediately, my head was filled with visions of Pamela Anderson’s breasts heaving over my eyes. Was this what I really wanted from a beauty product?

But never fear! Fake boobies did not sprout from my eyelids! No, what happened was much more miraculous. With just a touch of F.Y…Eye!, my eye shadow now stays miraculously in place! The eyelid oilies mitigate, my make up looks fresher longer, and that damn cakey crease line disappears. Solving an eye makeup pet peeve for twenty bucks? Totally worth it. Don’t be deceived by the wee bottle—a little goes a long way, and the jar will last for eons.

You need to put on your F.Y…Eye! three minutes before your eye shadow, so plan accordingly. Though I don’t wear much eye shadow during the day, I do always smear a tad of dark brown in my outer crease to open up the eye and make my lids look less heavy. What relief I feel knowing that my touch of brown won’t go sliding out of place. One less thing to worry about! And the product feels silky, not at all cakey, and leaves a flawless finish. Now that’s a word Real Girl has no pet peeves about. Flawless.

Because what else are products for?

Have you got eye makeup secrets of your own to share? Other priming products we NEED to know about? Just feel like ranting ‘bout your own pet peeves? Let ‘er rip, baby.

xx
Love,
Real Girl