Yet another makeup tip which is (almost) totally free!

You know I was going to write another product review but then Karl Marx’s ghost visited me and pointed me in the direction of Lisa Eldridge’s new makeup tutorial using exclusively natural and/or organic products. Well, thanks a lot Ghostly Karl Marx because upon watching Kween Lisa’s video, I picked up yet ANOTHER beauty tip which not only totally works but is (almost) TOTALLY FREE– using aloe vera gel as an eyeshadow primer!

Want to up your makeup game while kicking capitalism on the butt? Read on!

So eyeshadow primer is yet another one of those makeup products which were once upon a time totally unheard of but has suddenly morphed into a necessity. I mean, eyeshadow primer– a GOOD one, I mean– is totally great and all but sometimes I wonder if the existence of primers have only given makeup brands an excuse to manufacture shitty eyeshadows with the excuse that, well, their product totally doesn’t suck… you just need to buy ANOTHER product to make it not suck!

That’s totally bullshit, honestly. I mean, if I’m landed with a crappy eyeshadow palette I AM going to strive to make it work but just because I managed to make it work with the help of another 5 different products doesn’t change the fact that the aforementioned eyeshadow palette sucks.

Anyway, back to the whole aloe vera-as-primer thing. The aloe vera gel that I’m going to use is by The Face Shop… though you probably can use any aloe vera gel you have lying around the house. And you probably have one, too! Stores are always giving away aloe vera gel as GWPS and such.

A quick review– I bought the Face Shop Aloe Fresh 99% Soothing Moisture Gel with the intention of using it as a body lotion but it wasn’t moisturising enough. However, my younger sister who has oily skin has used it as a face moisturiser and she loves it. Which is why it makes sense to use it as a primer– what eyeshadow primers basically do is provide a base for your eyeshadows that is moisturised enough for your shadows to stick on but isn’t TOO moisturised that it causes it to crease. A lightly hydrating product like an aloe vera gel should do the trick.

A swatch of the aloe vera gel. You only need veeerrryyyy little to use as a primer. 

In order to check out how well it works, I used a less-than-stellar eyeshadow palette that I own– the Makeup Revolution Flawless Eyeshadow palette. By the way, I always see people selling this stuff online and marking it up to like RM80 and above. My advice is don’t bite, please. It LOOKS like a good deal for so many colours but it really isn’t. Most of the shades are chalky, the matte colours barely show up, there’s a ton of fallout… I was excited to see all the shimmery navy and purple shadows on it (I’m boring with eyeshadow and I wanted to branch out for once) until I found that they ARE BASICALLY INVISIBLE. Basically ALL the shades are invisible except for some of the boring, typical brows. And even after you’ve used a trowel of eyeshadow primer and packed it on with the world’s greatest natural hair flat brushes… the eyeshadows will crease after a couple of hours. 2/5. Do not buy this. Buy the Maybelline The Nudes palette instead, those are excellent for their price.

But right now we’re going to check out how aloe vera primer is able to improve the pigmentation/vividness of these shitty eyeshadows. The following are some swatches I’ve done on what I consider to be the shittiest shades from this palette. Also, I applied the shadows using the Art Deco flat eyeshadow brush, which is a natural bristle brush and is therefore better at picking up shadows.

All in all I’d say this is pretty impressive. The aloe vera was really able to bring some of the more lackluster colours to life. I think I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

On the left are the swatches with primer, on the right on bare skin.

The differences are pretty outstanding, right? I will admit that I’m not the biggest eyeshadow primer connoisseur– is anyone? I’ve used the infamous Urban Decay Primer Potion and personally found it to be not even all that. My favourite is the NYX Eyeshadow base, which works just as well as the UDPP to me while only being a fraction of the price. With the aloe gel, I’d say I can get the same colour payoff as I would with the NYX while costing even less.

You know I love finding ways to outfox the system, right? Right. Eyeshadow bases and primers are some of the most unnecessarily expensive makeup products out there, to me, so I’m totally glad to have come across this hack. Saves so much more money.