There are two significant factors I look at when purchasing cosmetics:

1. Color – Obviously, if it’s not the right color, it’s pretty useless.  Personal Color Analysis can help here, as well as with your clothing.  Sometimes it makes an even bigger difference!

For years, I wore “dusky” makeup, thinking it was “safer” than brighter, bolder color.  But, come to find out, I need clearer color, and the more muted colors were just making my cheeks look dirty. Not a good look! lol

2. Content – What goes on the skin ends up in the skin, so it’s pretty important to be sure your beauty products aren’t full of yucky chemicals.  All-natural is my preference, but there’s also something to be said for availability, especially if you’re experimenting to see which colors you really want.  Some of the drugstore makeup balances those two factors (natural-ness and accessibility) pretty well.  Read labels!

So I just went and got some eye makeup at CVS.  It’s not as natural as I’d like — I prefer natural colorings, etc. — but I was at least able to get paraben-free.  And this way I can play around, since I don’t really do eye makeup.  (Just mascara.)

I had a hard time deciding which eyeshadow set to get, because I’m working at trying to match a palette now, remember?  And eyeshadow combos rarely make sense as far as that goes.  They combine muted and clear, warm and cool, etc.  Rarely will all of the colors in a single eyeshadow combo actually look good on the same person.

Anyway, I finally ended up getting two, because I really loved the teals and violets of the “green eyes” set.  But it didn’t have any any lighter “base” colors that I liked.  The “fashionista” one did (and it had some good violets, too), although it had some muted olivey greens.

(I also like that there are instructions on the back of the package, because I’m really bad with makeup — especially eye makeup.)

Sooo…then I brought it home and used it.  I mentioned that I’m bad at this, right?  If it’s a feminine skill, chances are I stink at it.  That goes doubly for eyeshadow and triply for eyeliner.  But here you go — so you can see what the makeup looks like on, here’s my attempt.  (I didn’t do anything fancy — just followed the instructions on the package.)  It looks like I got most of the eyeliner on my eyelashes, rather than my eyelids.  Oops.

If there’s a trick to eyeliner, I’d love to hear it.  By the time I’ve closed my eyes far enough to get to the upper eyelid, I can’t see!  Surely I must be missing something, right?

This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias. #CBias As always, all opinions expressed here are my own.