Review: Anastasia Beverly Hills Eye Primer

Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Today I want to review the Anastasia Beverly Hills Eye Primer which I've been using intermittently over the last few months.

ABH Eye Primer comes in a silver tube with a pointed dispensing tip. When I read the reviews on Sephora, quite a few of them mentioned that the tube can dispense way more than you anticipate it will. With that in mind, I store mine upside down in a brush storage cup with the tip facing upwards and have had no issues with the product gushing out.

Unlike the sheer eye primers I typically use (think Urban Decay Primer Potion, Milani Eyeshadow Primer, Too Faced Shadow Insurance), ABH Eye Primer is quite opaque, and it's much more cool and white compared to my NC20-25 skin. It reminds me of Rouge Bunny Rouge's primer (PR sample), only that one is particularly unflattering and really emphasizes flakes and fine lines on your eyelid that don't really exist. ABH Eye Primer is a bit more forgiving. Due to the opacity, it makes a phenomenal product for cutting creases.

Left column is bare skin, middle column is VDL Expert Primer for Eyes, right is ABH Eye Primer. Top to bottom I used: Deep Shade from Pat McGrath Labs Subversive, Natasha Denona Cool Bronze, Cozzette Prince.

Colors darken the most over the siliconey VDL, it just fills in the gaps better on the skin. While mattes, satins, pearls, foils etc look better on a silicone primer, I think the Anastasia Beverly Hills Eye Primer is a great choice for matte neons or vivids:

The pale beigey whiteness of the primer really makes these shades from the Viseart Editorial Brights Palette pop. But note how you can easily spot the primer on the bottom half of my hand. It looks dry and a little cakey.

Here I've done a nude cut crease with the ABH Eye Primer on my mobile lid.

Here I used it just on my mobile lid, it stops right before I get to the pear green color. I didn't want to go all the way up the eyebrow and couldn't think of where else I could hide the demarcation.

I wish this primer came in more shades, given that it has such high coverage. When I see it used by those with darker skin tones (and on me too), it jumps out at me that wearer is using it, escalating the look to 'IG makeup' levels. Don't get me wrong, I personally love lots of eye shadow, no shame there. Many people don't apply quite so much day to day (nothing wrong with liking less makeup either) offline, a jarring contrast between very visible eye primer from lash to brow and skin tone takes the look to another plane that doesn't appeal to everyone. If I only use it on part of the look, you can easily tell because part of the eye shadow will appear much cooler and white based than the rest. Having medium and dark versions of this primer would really help keep looks on the more subtle side, if one were to desire that, particularly if melanin rich folks want to use it for negative space looks or nude cut creases.

I like that this opaque primer keeps colors very vibrant and true to pan, but I do find that it makes my eye lids look dry. I use it to cut creases or patted on the mobile lid over my regular sheer eye primer (VDL Expert Color Primer for Eyes) if I really want an ultra bright, highly chromatic look but I find that a tad excessive and I don't do cut creases all that often. I don't like to use it by itself but on its own, ABH Eye Primer gives me about 8-12 hours of crease free eye makeup, depending on the formula of the eye shadow.

Anastasia Beverly Hills Eye Primer is $23 for the full sized tube (15ml) at Beautylish. Sephora seems to be out of it at the moment, but they do have a mini size for $13 (7ml) which is more than a sufficient amount for me, I think this will last years with my rate of usage. I'm not sure I will rebuy.

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