It's official.

I am in love with my Armani blender brush. Apparently it's supposed to be used for foundation, but works perfectly for doing that effortless eye-makeup thing that I've never really been able to do before. It makes my face look slightly more finished, a little more defined than usual and of course this is in my own head and my co-workers could be thinking "Why is she coming in looking like a crack whore/clown/inexperienced makeup putter-on-er?" (the HORROR)

But I use a lighted, magnifying mirror every morning because I am just that vain (my mirror is prettier, as it was inherited from my mother who never used it, who received it from my father and we all wondered what he was trying to tell her. I like to think it was just a nice gesture because my parents are NEVER EVER EVER going to get divorced because there's not enough therapy in the world to get me through that). So I feel confident that I'm using a light enough touch.

Like so: sweep a neutral-ish base color across your eye with the wide part of the brush. I'm currently using a pink-y white-ish color that doesn't really show up, just makes the lid more uniform and matte. Then turn the blender brush on it's side so there's the skinny edge and smudge a little bit of a darker color (using a warm, lovely, darkish brown from Estee Lauder right now) from the outside edge of the lid to about iris over about half the lid (up to where the crease would be if one has a crease. Which I don't. Asians unite!) with a light hand so there's the suggestion of shadowing. Pretty. In that "I am not wearing makeup, I naturally have these shadows and contours on my face because I am genetically superior" kind of way.

I should probably mention that I have small-ish, Asian eyes with no crease so putting on eye-makeup, particularly shadow, has always been an exercise in frustration for me and I usually leave the shadow portion out altogether (until recently I also left out the mascara portion and then realized that with defined, dark-ish lips and no eyemakeup, I looked like some kind of crazy person who's friends don't love her enough to say "You look like a damn, half done fool").

My sister also bought the brush and she has large eyes with a crease (lucky bitch) and she was told to put it on with the same colors like so: same sweep of base color across the lid, but then put the darker shadow across the entire lower lid up to the crease with a light hand. She looked good. Good enough that she bought her darling sister a $45 blender brush.

The "face designer" also smudged on a bit of black powder liner around the eye, but this seems a tad too racy for me, modest prim thing that I am. Maybe for night occasions. Maybe not.

What I loved about this brush is that it makes things so easy. Perfect shape for application in one swoop, perfect amount of color deposit. Also, because I am a geek and hate having brushes just rolling around all dirty and unprotected, it comes with this little plastic sleeve (like a makeup brush condom) that you slide down when you use and then slide up when not in use and it stays put and you don't have to keep capping or uncapping or having weird bristles of the brush stick out and then get kinked when you try to recap in a hurry and it just works.

So now I am obsessing about buying shadows since I discovered a deplorable paucity when I went hunting through my stockpile of cosmetics to experiment with.

I'm pretty sure Sephora is going to be hit hard and savagely in the next couple of days.