Cosmetic shopping: Vlogs, value and revitalizing your supply

The New Year means a dressing-table sweep: out with five-year-old sunscreen, unused pans of heavy-shimmer eyeshadow, the expensive lipstick that dried my lips.

Interested in joining in?

Before restocking, browse beauty and makeup vlogs made by and for grown women. While makeup has changed, many products are made for a young market; I bought a gel eyeliner that indeed glided as smoothly as Alina Zagitova landing a five-jump combination, but laid down an unalterably thick line that was way too aggressive.

This Guardian article lists links to vlogs for us, though I shall avoid the Korean woman's method of curling her eyelashes with a heated toothpick.

Vlogs are way better than articles; you can see the correct application and judge whether you have the eye-hand coordination and patience required. (If any "look" goes beyond four steps, I'm outta there.)

Today, tips for makeup shopping, regardless of price point.

Mascara: Any brand from budget to luxury dries and thicken as it ages, even in the package.
Three ways to get it fresh:
1. Check the batch code for the production date or PAO code for expiry date. PAO codes are standard on European cosmetics; batch codes are more common with North American-made products.
2. Ask the cosmetics salesperson for the latest batch; they usually see what's just been restocked.
3. No salesperson? Reach way to the back. Like milk, the older stuff is shelved to the front.

Lippie: Try it on unless you like the roulette-wheel thrill of buying from a colour swatch. Walk outdoors to look at it with your little purse mirror, because the store lights will distort the hues. What looks vibrant under florescence can change dramatically in natural light. This tactic is important for any colour-intense makeup, like blusher, eyeshadow and pencils in anything other than neutrals. (It may be a pain to exit a mall, but worth it.) Oh, and put it on the body part where it goes.

Skin care: Once you find the skin care system that works for you, use it faithfully; do not stray to the newest miracle someone blogs about. That's how you end up with a nest of barely-used bottles. By this time you probably know what it is.  If not, it will be lots of trial and error; see "At the counter".

A consultant can help, but I grew wary of skincare-expert bloggers: conflicting advice and product recommendations that compensate the writer or are her own brand.

At the counter

Before you are enveloped in an estrogen haze of girlfriend bonding with a makeup artist, here are some pointers:

1. First, the praise: professional advice is is terrific because various products perform differently depending on the climate conditions where you live, so local makeup artists can be more accurate than vloggers. For example, Montréal can be so cold that some lipsticks have actually hardened to a shell on my lips.

Current crush: L'Oreal Color Riche Shine, sitting prettily between lipstick and gloss, emollient enough for our harsh winter, and in a pretty case you don't often see at that price point.

I look for the oldest associate at a place like Sephora or MAC; if no one looks over twenty-three, I ask how long they've been working in the business. Yes, I am being ageist, but a young artist may not realize how differently older skin accepts certain effects. I applaud the MAC makeup artist, Kim, who politely told an acquaintance that the dark purple eyeshadow she liked would be all wrong for her.

Then, push them about performance. The prettiest shade of lipstick is a bust if it lasts twenty minutes. Forget the sleek packaging, the scent, the sexy name. How does it wear? No tube-type lipstick lasts all day; here is a good tutorial in getting the most out of the one you love, and it mentions my favourite universal beauty item, Arden Eight Hour Cream.

2. Skin care products can be tippy-top dollar and still not deliver for you.

At specialty and department stores, request free samples and assess at home, away from the seductive setting. Sephora give samples of any product supplied in a tube or pump bottle. (If you are dissatisfied, they will accept a return within 30 days if you've only used a little.)

At drug stores, samples are usually limited to on-site application from a tester, but there are occasional vendor events where they'll give samples.

3. For exfoliating, body moisturizing and makeup-removal products: look up the DIY version first and if you can make it in an hour or less, whip it up. This stuff is ridiculously overpriced.

Why spend $35 on a body scrub when there are excellent recipes (ten easy ones are here) that cost less than a takeout coffee to make? You can even concoct your own all-natural mascara. I haven't tried, but I've made scrubs, makeup remover, lipstick/gloss and masks.

Makeup is the essence of the feminine world; it has been found at Egyptian sites dating from 4, 000 years B.C. When you're restocking, choose at least one item that makes you feel like a fabulous creature. Don't feel bad if the packaging is part of it, this is your thrumming pleasure centre calling.

Resisting every splashy-flashy product will permit that indulgence; in my case, it's fragrance, a whole other world.  And don't keep it for 'good'. Wear that lipstick in the elegant case, massage a satiny cream into your winter-roughed skin—and enjoy the ritual.