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Beauty Review: Smashbox Under Eye Brightener

Posted by Jess - 08/09/10 at 11:09 am

Product: Smashbox Photo Op Under Eye Brightener $18

Rating: Maybe Next Week

Under eye circles are apparently my cross to bear. Sometimes I condemn nature for this cruel sign of aging but recently I came across a photo of myself as a teenager and you know what? I had under eye circles then too. Must be the curse of Irish blood. *sigh*

Whatever the cause, I’ve made it my life mission to search for a cure (of course I have several life missions and others involve wine, tropical islands, and tanned men but you get the idea).

Smashbox’s under eye brightener represents one of my attempts to cover up these dark, sometimes red, sometimes sagging circles under my eyes. And if there was a beauty rating named, “I don’t get it” that’s what I would have chosen (but we’re trying to maintain some site-wide consistency for you here, ok?).

First off, I could not figure out how and when to apply it. At this point, I’m in possession of several aggressive weapons assigned to the under eye circle war. I’ve got liquid foundation, concealer, and pressed powder. And that’s not even getting into the “preparation” products that go down before the real make-up gets started. Hey, if nothing else works, I figure I can cover them up by simply burying my under eye area in a mountain of product layers.

Because its a brightener, it seems to follow that you’d want to put it on last. A quick swipe of the stuff along your finger is enough to notice that the product is full of shimmery substances. Surely that would create a shinier, perkier surface to my dark circles?

But according to the minds of Smashbox, it’s meant to go under your concealer (also, I’ve tried putting it on top and it’s no good. It’s thin and seems to eat through the bottom layers of product).

I don’t get it.

How can it brighten my skin if its underneath a thick (and very matte) concealer?And where does my foundation and pressed powder come into play? Am I supposed to brighten the area first and then dull it down with lots of thick, heavy layers? What kind of sense does that make?

There are moments in the make-up world, far too many moments, where I have a sneaking suspicion that I’ve been had….

I really do wonder if I’m better off sleeping with a few cucumbers on my eyes and applying a few dashes of concealer once I wake up…

What do you think?

[Photo courtesy of Sephora]

Beauty Review Rating Codes:

• Crush: It's lust at its best. That thrill of something new, something exciting, something that gets your pulse racing. Will it last until next season? Maybe not. But who cares. It's here and its now.
• Til Death do us Part: True Love. In it for the long haul. A product so near and dear to the heart, it's practically family.
• Maybe next week: There's no denying a basic attraction and a certain level of interest. We're totally on board for a few dates but we're not penning love letters or making commitments here.
• Let's just be friends: Listen, if we bump into each other, that's fine. There's nothing really wrong with it. It's just that there's nothing really right either...
• Lost your number: Let's just forget this whole thing ever happened

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 8th, 2010 at 11:30 AM and is filed under Beauty Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.