little white truths

There's the colour in sunlight above and in natural light below. 

Do be aware that the photo on the Kevyn Aucoin website (and other retailers' websites) shows this to be more of an orangey neutral, which it definitely isn't. It's more cool and almost pink in some lights.

I was initially disappointed about this because I'd hoped it would be more like Stila's Wit (it does look that way on the websites), which is my favourite crease colour of all time. Happily all was forgotten once I tried this and saw how good it looked on the eye.

And there's my completed eye look below (natural light). 

I've added Kevyn Aucoin's The Eyeshadow Single in 108 for more definition in the crease, and Kevyn Aucoin's Candlelight as my highlighter shade (I'll review those soon).

I absolutely love the formula of Kevyn Aucoin's eyeshadows and this one is no exception.

Shade 104 Soft Clay is a neutral, pale brown that looks cooler and pinker in some lights. It's the perfect 'my eyes but better' shade that adds soft definition without being too much. It's also a great shade to put over other formulations if your eyeshadow looks patchy: a swipe or two of this and everything looks beautiful and melded together.

The formula itself is beautifully creamy and silky, and it almost applies and blends itself so it's one of those shadows that doesn't require a lot of work - my favourite kind!

I've just been comparing this to my Nars Portobello Duo Eyeshadow (also a matte formulation), and this one is far superior. Where the Nars product feels hard and powdery, this one feels soft and gorgeous. While the Nars product can take a bit of work to blend, this one is super easy and never looks patchy.

One thing to note about Kevyn Aucoin eyeshadows, however (at least the singles), is that they're not super pigmented. While they're buildable, you'd have to apply them wet to get a huge colour pay-off, so they mightn't be for everyone.

There seems to be a huge focus on strong pigmentation in the beauty community these days, with most people agreeing that high pigmentation is a good thing and low pigmentation is not. 

I'm not in that camp: I don't want heaps of pigment in my powders because I often find really pigmented products harder to work with and more prone to patchiness and mistakes. While that's not always the case because some pigmented products do blend out really well, you still have to be careful with them and not get too much on your brush/go easy with application, to avoid looking like a clown. 

I don't want to be super careful: I want to be able to throw my eyeshadow or blush on with one eye on my daughter and one eye on my compact. This product gives me that, which is one of the reasons I've given it an HG tag.

Another good thing about it is that it lasts well throughout the day, whether with or without a primer. I'd recommend using a primer because that always helps with intensity and therefore means you don't need to build the colour too much (which can add texture and look less natural, because powder starts to look visible pretty quickly). It also just looks high quality when applied. Often you can't tell between low quality and high quality powders once they're on your face, but I certainly can with this.

Compared to the Nars duo mentioned above, this almost looks ethereal and seems to lift the eye area without the use of shimmer or sheen, while the Nars product just looks standard. I don't mean to bag the Nars product - it's a decent shadow and I do use it - it's just that it's an obvious point of comparison because both products are similar colours, are both high-end, are both matte, and I use them for similar things.

In sum, this is a fantastic product and I think it meets all its claims. It won't be for everyone due to how sheer it is, but I love that about it and it's a product I would buy again.

I haven't done one of these posts for ages so I thought it was high time I did. 

While I do have two of my 'how long does it take to finish' tests on foot (for an eye pencil and an eyeshadow), I thought I'd change the way I do them going forward.

This year, instead of writing the opening post about what product I'm testing at the beginning of the test, I thought I'd write that post when I'm at least halfway through the product - just so that anyone reading it can get an idea of how long a product lasts from the very beginning (rather than having to wait months for a verdict).

I'm doing this because I belatedly realised that it might be a little annoying to search for how long it takes to finish something, then find my post but not get an immediate answer (or at least a guestimate) from it. Let me know if you think that's a good idea. 

Anyhoo. So I opened this little 4.8g travel mascara at the beginning of November 2015 (I've reviewed it here if you're interested).

At the time I thought it would be good to do a test post of the product because I never finish full-sized mascaras since you're meant to throw them out within a few months, and they do tend to start going gloopy by then anyway.

Three months in, this mascara is obviously almost dead because it's getting hard to pick product up with the wand - so I can say that a mascara this size will last about three months of daily use. 

What I'll do now is 'revive' it (from memory you can do that by adding a little saline solution, but I'll check that), just to ensure I get every last bit from the tube - because it is getting to the gloopy stage and it's almost ready to turf. 

I expect to get another week's use from it, but it may well be more than that because I haven't tried reviving a mascara before. After that, I'll update this post with a confirmation of just how long 4.8g of mascara should last.

I think the above is a fairly 'standard' representation of how a person might use a mascara, so hopefully the results will be reasonably accurate for you.

That's it! I'll check back in and update this post soon with a more precise verdict, but yes, a travel-sized mascara will last you about three months of daily use, before you revive it (if you ever do that).

Verdict

So I did revive the product by adding a few drops of saline, and I got four extra applications from the tube before it became pretty clear that I wasn't going to get any more.

I'm not sure I would try reviving a mascara again because it does make the formula more watery (or perhaps I just overdid the saline), plus I wouldn't recommend it for anything you've had for too long because you don't want to risk eye infection with something like this.

In any event, at least I can now confirm my verdict: a travel-sized mascara will last around three months of daily use.

Since you're meant to throw out mascara after three months, why on earth do brands make them in full size at all?!

Just putting that out there ; )