Various Mixing Mediums & Adhesives

Friday, July 27, 2018

A comment on Instagram from @makeup_museum (are you following the beauty community's resident historian? You should be!) recently had me thinking about the products I use to keep glitter, sparkle, and high shine metallics on my eyelids.

There's four main adhesives/mediums that I keep on hand, in addition to a standard silicone primer (Urban Decay Primer Potion, Too Faced Shadow Insurance, etc). Primer is nonnegotiable (because I've never thought "well today I'd like my eye shadow to look 50-70% more shitty than usual!" and skipped it) but these adhesives give highly reflective shadows more impact and keep errant glitter from falling to your cheeks.

NYX Glitter Primer, $6.49

The easiest of all the products listed to find in person, Ulta or your closest NYX stockist is likely to have it. This feels like a primer that instead of being silicone-y slick, is slightly sticky. This is a good option to use with loose pigments that have enough synthetic oils in them that they ball up into little beads in the container (many indie pigments, MAC pigments, etc). Holds glitter decently well (like B+) but I wouldn't trust it to keep large particle glitter on my eyes all day.

Inglot Duraline, $14

I bought this less than two months ago and I'm about 1/3 through the bottle because it is incredible stuff! It turns any pigment or loose shade (or even pan shadow, scrape some off the top) into very creamy liquid liner. The resulting liner glides over the skin very well and is pretty waterproof. Is not very sticky, but if you press glitters onto skin moistened with Duraline, most flecks/sparkle will bind to your skin. Duraline is also phenomenal for reinvigorating dried out pots of brow color or gel liner. The packaging is very clever - a button on the top of the glass bottle top operates the pipette. Of the four products mentioned today, this is the only one that works well with satin or matte textures, the other products I use only on glitter/metallic/sparkle. I bought this in an Inglot store, but it's much easier for US folks to order from Beautylish or Macy's.

Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy, $7

I've been using this for about 8 years, it's an invaluable product if you like flashy duochromes or loose pigments. Pixie Epoxy is a sticky dense gel in doe footed wand packaging that adheres shadows and pigments for high impact sparkle/gleam/shine. I use the tip of my finger to lightly dot minuscule amounts onto my lid, kind of smearing it as I apply. Aim for a super thin layer, less is more. If you use too much, it can pill up into a gummy layer (whatever you think you'll need, half that!). This feels like a product that wouldn't set, and would crease easily, yet somehow it holds everything in place. Glitter and sparkle stays firmly right where you left it. Breaks down with oil or water. Purchasable directly from Fyrinnae.

Mehron Mixing Liquid

I've had this tiny little bottle for a few years, and I don't use it all that often. While Mehron Mixing Liquid will wet shadows, the resulting paint still skips over the skin a bit. I could see the appeal of the fast drying formula for pro work and for use with Mehron's AQ line (the cakes themselves have emollients), but at home the rapid dehydration is more of a nuisance, especially with Mehron's metallic pigments because they don't seem to contain much, if any, binders. I've used this product in a unintended way -you know how tiny eye brushes like liner brushes and small pencil shaped brushes will have wayward hairs? I like putting a drop of this between my fingers, like a brush shaping pomade, patted lightly into those brushes to keep them in perfect pointed shape. Like pomade... but for eye brushes. Mehron Mixing Liquid dissolves easily with water (and tears) and I found that the easier way to dispense it was to decant some into a small dropper bottle (from The Container Store)

You can get the 4.5 oz size from Overstock for $12 or $10 at Camera Ready Cosmetics.

A comparison would help, would it not? Here I have the drier, chunkier Pat McGrath Labs Astral White and L'Oreal Infallible Midnight Blue, which is a creamier compacted pigment.

I incorrectly labeled the NYX as 'Glitter Adhesive' instead of 'Glitter Primer'. Plain primer on the left side to show you how these shadows look dry.

If I had to whittle it down, I'd pick just Pixie Epoxy and Duraline to keep in my arsenal. They're the best of the four and would have the greatest utility.

In addition to primer, do you use anything else to fix high sparkle/metallic/glitter shades to your face?

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