The Pursuit of Perfect Skin

I am obsessed with skin.  My skin, specifically. I had spirit-crushing breakouts as a teenager, so since then I’ve been anxious about using anything that might possibly piss my skin off, especially before a big event or an important meeting or any time when I would like it to behave.  As a teen, I covered all of my blemishes with loads of 1980s Revlon foundation.  Fast forward 20 or 30 years, and I still feel that need for “coverage” and lots of it, even though I’m not quite as breakout prone anymore.   It took meeting Lisa Eldridge  a few years back (yes, THE Lisa Eldridge!)(insert some angels singing, clouds parting, and unicorns prancing and tossing their glossy manes) and having her tell me that my skin was good and that I only needed a light foundation to convince me to finally calm down on the coverage.  Lisa Eldridge has spoken, and it must be so.  For years I used the Chanel and Bourjois foundations that she recommended, and I still use them occasionally.

Another anecdote I have to cram in here is that when I was pregnant with my son a couple of years ago, I moved completely away from better-skin-through-science type of skincare products, and dived headlong into the better-skin-through-organic-stuff type skincare products.  Well, I’ve never looked back.  I’ll do another post on which of those products have been skin-changing and life-changing for me, but since my skin seemed to improve as if by magic in a matter of weeks, I began to look for more natural and organic makeup products to use as well.  I was disappointed by all of the ones I tried.  Everything was too matte, the colour ranges were too narrow so I was always between shades, they had no lasting power, no coverage, or all of the above.  I could see the makeup sitting on my skin and sitting in my pores, especially at the end of the day.  I gave up and kept using my trusty Bourjois CC cream that Lisa recommends.

A couple of weeks ago, I happened to pass by a display of Jane Iredale mineral cosmetics at my spa.  I know the line from the States, but I’d never tried it.  I figured it was worth a shot, since they were offering a free makeover with a Jane Iredale makeup artist.  She did a super job on my makeup (really high praise from me, who has never liked a single makeover I’ve ever had in my life, except by Lisa Eldridge)(I even did my own makeup for my wedding). I didn’t love everything in the line, but I did love their Glow Time Full Coverage BB Cream  mineral foundation set with this D20 hydration spray.  You only need a tiny amount of product, and the coverage is very buildable, so you can go super sheer or layer and spackle a bit in areas where you need to hide stuff. I really didn’t like the pressed mineral powder she used on top because it was far too matte, but I am reliably told that the loose powder is glowy rather than matte.

The one other product in the line that I cannot possibly live without is the Eye Gloss.  I’m glad the makeup artist used it on me because I would never ever have purchased a product with that name, being the owner of two very greasy eyelids, and constantly creasing eyeshadow (even with a good primer).  But THIS!  This eye gloss is amazing.  I use the Champagne Silk colour as a wash over my entire eyelid (a non-colour colour on me)(my eyelids are the colour of Champagne, imagine that) and then use whatever eyeshadow I normally would, or leave it as is if I’m going (my version of) Au Natural.

If anyone has any experience with natural makeup lines, please let me know in the comments.  I do intend to explore more of the Jane Iredale line as I weed out my previous makeup and try to replace it with products containing less synthetic ingredients.