A Week In Makeup

I was inspired ages and ages ago by a post by Vita on Making Up 4 My Age in which she gathered up all of the products she wore in a week and took a good hard look at just how much makeup actually gets used in a week. I found it fascinating! Now I am not the sort of person who has a ‘go to’ look. I tend to wear something different every day and rotate through my products, unless I am actively trying to finish something, so I knew it would be a lot by the end of the week. I forgot to include concealers in the overall picture but hmm. That is definitely a large amount of slap right there...

Despite owning several primers I was trying to finish my tube of Benefit Porefessional (which I now have). I also tend to rotate loose setting powders every month or so therefore ELF HR powder was the only setting powder was it that week. I must have repeated foundations a couple of days as normally I would wear a different one every day of the week technically there are only 4 here as I have to mix the two bottles of MUFE Mat Velvet+ to get my shade).

I’m somewhat intimidated by the pile of concealer there. I use the Vichy more as a concealer than as a foundation as it is so heavy. I use the YSL Touche Eclat every day over my under eye concealer to brighten things up a wee bit (I swear this tube is immortal, it lasts forever!) The ELF Mineral concealer gets applied over any cream concealer I apply over particularly gruesome blemishes to add extra coverage and staying power. Apparently I do a lot of concealing...

This pile is actually from a couple of weeks ago when I had a lot of very early starts. If I have minimal time in the morning then cream shadows are my go to, hence the gaggle of Benefit and Maybelline cream shadows here. I must have had time for some proper eye shadows on some days though hence the Revlon cream shadows (which I only ever use as a base, they crease horrendously alone), Burberry quad and Sleek palettes. As primers I swap between my Urban Decay Primer Potion in Sin and Laura Mercier Eye Basics in Cotton. See that tiny scrap of NYX Highlight left? Finished now!!

Blush, bronzer and highlight are more products that I like to use something different every day. I know it might sounds like a bit much to some people but yes I really do contour, blush and highlight every day. Exceptions are products like the Guerlain blush/ bronzer which works best for my when I swirl my blush across all the shades to give a sun kissed peachy cheek with just enough of a sheen to it to forgo highlight.

There isn’t much to say about this pile of mascara, liners and brow products except that it is a testament to how lazy I was that week that the Soap & Glory pen liner is the only liner in there. There should probably be a couple of pencil liners that I will have used on my water line in this picture but clearly I forgot... That empty pan you see there is the wax from my Benefit Browzings which I finished months ago. The powder is still going strong! I just set it with my MAC Brow Finish now.

And finally lip products. Ranging from low maintenance days with the likes of a Revlon Lip butter to a full on red lip with MAC pencil in Redd and Russian Red lipstick. I’m surprised by how few products I had to fish out of my handbag at the end of the week to be honest. It’s normally worse than this.

Hmm. On the one hand it’s good to know that I do use a large proportion of my collection on a weekly basis but it’s also a bit of a wakeup call about how much makeup I wear. I’m not sure I’m bothered by that though. I like my slap, what can I say!