Unusual Face Favorites

"Keep your face always toward the sunshine - and shadows will fall behind you." - Walt Whitman

I personally have no beef with drugstore brands. Sure, they're certainly not IDEAL due to their collectively harmful chemical footprint and their sometimes less-than-stellar longevity, but they shouldn't be discounted completely, especially for those bargaining and budgeting on beauty products. This post will showcase two recently tested face makeup products, one drugstore concealer and one prestige brand foundation, and I'll be honest, the choice of these two products paired together is completely random, so just hop along for the wild ride!

The first product I'd like to share with you is the Tarte's Clay Stick Foundation, the sister to the ABH stick, Bobbi Brown stick, and a host of other "sticks" that followed suit in 2017. It is a "12-hour, multidimensional matte foundation" that boasts a "full-coverage, powder-to-liquid formula [which] melts into skin while micro-encapsulated powders burst with your body heat to keep you shine & cake-free." Pretty impressive, right? That's why I tested it, and it didn't disappoint! Though the coverage was a tad heavy for me personally, someone who loves full coverage would appreciate it much better. It was lightly creamy, matte (initially), and applied evenly over my skin, adhering to my drier patches a bit which wasn't ideal. Overall though, and for the skin benefits it provides, this is a terrific and perfectly portable foundation stick!

Let's touch briefly on this next product which is a handy-dandy drugstore brand concealer, the Maybelline Instant Age Rewind Eraser Dark Circles Treatment! Though I don't buy into the "Age Rewind" slogan, I do love the soft sponge rounded tip on this little guy. It places the product gently and specifically into the hollows of the eye socket. I purchased the shade Fair and it was perfect for my porcelain complexion. It's not a terribly thick concealer so if you have serious discoloration or severe purple or blue circles, then it's not for you. I set this concealer with Tarte's Smoothe Operator Pressed Powders, so I would recommend using some other type of lightweight sheer powder to set this thinly liquid concealer. This is a purse-friendly makeup product as well, not only in size but as a sealed container. Because of the sponge tip, you can use this sans brush and with very little use of the hands, so the effect is effortlessly airbrushed and natural. I was thoroughly impressed!

Have you tried either one of these products? What're your face favorites?