I Bought It
By Sheila Arkee
With over 16 years of makeup purchasing experience under my belt, I have definitely accumulated a serious makeup stash through the years. While I make a point to do a de-stash every couple of months and give away products to friends and family, there are a few products that have stayed along for the ride, and have surprisingly held up pretty well. If properly stored, powder products can last forever and I keep my creamy products in cool, dark containers which keeps them from breaking down.
Taking a trip down makeup memory lane is one of my favorite pastimes.. It’s like taking a trip to my own personal makeup museum – here’s a peek at some cool products from my past that I recently re-discovered.
1. Nars Santorini and California Eyeshadows
Santorini is discontinued and needs my broken eyeshadow fix, fast! I remember purchasing this dark, shimmery purple when it was mentioned in either InStyle or Allure that it was used on Beyonce. I was such a sucker for anything published in InStyle and Allure back in the day!
California is a beautiful bronze that I’m definitely going to start wearing more often. I have no idea why it fell to the wayside for so long!
2. Kevyn Aucoin Liquifuchsia/Hot Pink Cream Blush
I am a forever fan of Keyvn Aucoin and was so excited to buy this extremely pigmented cream blush several years ago. Liquifuchsia is a beautiful pink that blends in to look natural, but it’s not the easiest to blend and that’s why I this blush is still pretty much untouched!
3. Kryolan Lashes
I purchased these several years ago, actually many years ago, when Jessica Simpson was still married to Nick Lachey. She had an Alice in Wonderland-themed birthday party and had really long side lashes as part of her look. I purchased these intending to create a similar look and just never got around to it – who knows what they’ll come in handy for at some point in time!
4. MAC NC55 Loose Powder
By the time I ended my career as a retail artist with MAC, you had never seen someone so glad to leave which was a stark contrast to the way I felt when I started freelancing with the company several years before. I started freelancing at the Macy’s in Union Square, San Francisco about 11 years ago and I had the privilege of working with the greatest crew I could have hoped for. They took me under their wings, nurtured my artistry dreams, and were nice enough to give me display samples of discontinued products. One of such display samples was an unused container of NC55 loose powder.
While I’ve used this a few times on freelance jobs, it’s been languishing and I feel sad because it’s actually a fabulous matte bronzer. Many bronzers have an orange tone and to avoid that I always suggest using a powder that is several shades darker than your usual shade. In MAC’s terminology, NC foundations, concealers,and powders have a yellow undertone while NW’s have a pink undertone.
That was a fun trip down memory lane – I found many other great products which will be making there way on Painted Ladies soon.
Have you come across any beauty products from your past recently?
