Everything Needs A Good Base... Including Eye Shadow Part II

In my Everything Needs A Good Base... Including Eye Shadow Part II blog entry, I touched on bases and different types of bases such as MAC Paint Pots, NYX Jumbo Eye Pencils, etc.  It's one thing to tell you how great they are and another thing to show you just what I am talking mean.  Now that my digital camera is back up and running after almost two weeks of being out of commission (thanks CC!), I wanted to show you just a few uses of bases.

One way a base can be used is alone as an eye shadow.  Most of them are described by the manufacturer as eye shadows.  MAC Cosmetics describes their paint pots as "A highly pigmented eye colour that goes on creamy but dries to an intense, vibrant finish. Long-wearing, colourfast. Creates seamless coverage without weight or caking. Blends smoothly over the lids. Cream-based, can be mixed with M·A·C shadows and liners."  On the NYX website, Jumbo Eye Pencils are listed as "a simplified way to get the perfect eye-popping color combination".  They are very blendable and buildable so if you wanted to use them as an eye shadow alone, they all can easily be used as such.

But if you are looking to get more color payoff from your eye shadows, this is the way to go.

Have you ever bought an eye shadow color that looked beautiful in the pot but when you returned home and swatched the color on yourself, it didn't have the same color pay off you were expecting?  This is what happened to me when I first purchase Parfait Amour by MAC.  This color is listed on MAC's website as a "blue-violet with shimmer".  I couldn't resist the color when I saw it in the store.  I get it home, try it on my skin, but it did not show up on my skin the way I thought it would.  It was not the great color I had in mind.  But used over NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Purple and the color turns out amazing.

Another way bases can be used to lighten and darken the color of the eye shadow you put over it.

The picture above shows Parfait Amour alone and over different color bases.  In the middle on the left is the color alone.  In the middle row in the middle is the NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Purple.  Next to that on the far right of the middle row is Parfait Amour over Purple.  At the left top to the far left is a popular NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in the color milk which is a white color.  Next to that on the right is Parfait Amour over white.  Notice how it is a lighter color from the Parfait Amour over Purple.  Next is the NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Black Bean.  On the top row on the far right is Parfait Amour over the black.  Notice how much darker it makes that color.  On the bottom row on the far left is the NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in a great color named Rust.  To the right of that is Parfait Amour over Rust.  See how it changes the color of the eye shadow?  The last two swatches are NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Lime and the Parfait Amour over Lime.  I wanted to show you how different the eye shadow will look over different color eye shadow base colors and how much the base will make the eye shadow more vibrant.

So my Lovelies, these are just a few of the ways bases can be used.  The possibilities are endless.  Play around with them.  Have fun with them.  If you find another way to use them that was not mentioned in this blog entry, please share!

 Until then...