Anastasia Beverly Hills Beauty Genius Will Change Your Life

Saturday, June 14, 2014

Is that title enough of a hyperbole for you? A few months ago, I bought Anastasia Beverly Hills Beauty Genius because everyone and their mom were showing how waterproof it was with neat little videos on Instagram. Listen, the only thing I love more than makeup brushes is a multipurpose beauty product and Beauty Genius hits the mark. You can use it to waterproof any powder product, as a brow sealer and even as a glitter adhesive! Usually I don't have a problem with my eyeliner or brows smudging but man, allergies make me tear up like crazy. As it turns out, Anastasia Beauty Genius is pretty much just that- genius.

Beauty Genius comes in a small lipgloss type tube that is clear, while the gel itself is slightly cloudy. The applicator is a sort of small flexible spatula that allows you to scoop up a bit of Beauty Genius. The tube is sturdy but after owning BG for a few months, the silver has started to scratch. I think that I would have preferred a small squeeze tube with a nozzle (think new UDPP or OCC Lip Tars).

The basic gist of this product is that you mix it with a powder product to create a gel that is waterproof and really, really budgeproof. That means that you can create brows that won't smear anymore and tightline with confidence, knowing that it won't migrate to your lower lash line. I scoop a tiny bit of gel out onto a small ceramic plate or a stainless steal palette and mix the loose powder in with a brush. After testing it out on a cake of powder, I wouldn't recommend trying to mix it into pressed powder. It hardens the surface of the powder and makes it very difficult to mix into a nice consistency. It's super easy to take a palette knife and gently scrape any powder eyeshadow to loosen a bit of it into powder form. The amount of powder you mix depends on what you're using it for:

-For brows, to avoid a color that is too dark I use 3:1 gel to powder ratio.
-For solid opaque eyeliner, I use a 1:1 or maybe even 1:2 gel to powder ratio depending on how pigmented the eye shadow is.
-For use as a glitter adhesive, I use my finger to pat the gel on my and then dab the glitter on top, no mixing needed.

Alternatively, I've found that if you think that applying wet product to your brows creates too harsh of a brow, you can use a spoolie to brush a little product into your brows after applying your regular brow powder (I use Anastasia Beverly Hills Brow Powder Duo in Granite) to set your brows and waterproof them, like so:

I've used Anastasia Beauty Genius mixed with Urban Decay Perversion Eyeshadow for my eyeliner, to tightline under my upper lashes and brushed through my brows. It's so budgeproof that at the end of the day, there's no transfer to my lower lashes, even though I had unintentionally rubbed my leaky eyes a bit. Now the only thing that Beauty Genius doesn't combat is oil- if you have oily eyelids that are hooded and experience a lit of lid friction, chances are the oil will break down your BG made eyeliner and cause transfer.

In fact, oil is one of the only things that will remove Beauty Genius. Here, I'm showing you how easily it comes off with cleansing oil (Kose Softymo Speedy Oil Cleanser). I'd expect similar results with a biphase makeup remover, but not that great of results removing it with a cleansing cloth or micellar water.

As a glitter/sparkle adhesive, it doesn't work completely as effective as Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy which has been for years, my glitter glue of choice. Maybe 90% as effective as Pixie Epoxy. However since BG waterproofs whatever you mix it with and Pixie Epoxy comes off very easily with warm water, I'm more inclined to use the former.

Anastasia Beverly Hills Beauty Genius is $18. It only takes a minuscule amount of gel for each use (like 1/3 the size of a small pea) so I estimate that this tube will last me for quite a while.

Have you tried Anastasia Beverly Hills Beauty Genius yet? Do you have a favorite multipurpose product?

Product featured was purchased by me, for my own use. Post contains affiliate links. For additional information, please refer to my Disclosure Policy.