Wow..I’m impressed, although I originally balked at the idea of paying that much for makeup…I might just have to give it a try.

Also, I am compulsive plucker. Shhh..don’t tell anyone, but I keep a pair of tweezers in my purse, in my desk drawer at work and worst or weirdest of all..in my jeep. Sometimes I pluck at lunch. How sick am I? I can’t believe I just admitted that. And overplucking? I’ve had spots almost completely bare because I was trying to get this one elusive grey eyebrow. The house we just bought has terrible lighting and of course, my 1000000X magnifying mirror light decided to quit after 5 some years and I can’t see to pluck! So there is my excuse for having one in my car.

You look great in both, actually. I love freckles and I’m jealous, just seethingly jealous, of your freckles. And mostly, what I appreciate about the ‘after’ is that your skin looks indeedy, a little more even, you still have those freckles. Awesome.

My biggest complaint about the mineral makeup is that I can’t really get a decent blush (blusher? I refuse to say ‘rouge’) to stick to it. I feel like I’m over-powdering with a powder blush(er?), and yet, the cream blush I usually used (Stila Convertible Color) wipes away the powder when I apply it. Yet here, you seem to be wearing blush(er). Can I ask what it is?

Also re: the eyebrows, I wax every two weeks. I know it’s impractical and a waste of money, but I am that horrible mix of supremely anal and also, supremely lazy. So in order to keep my brows neatly groomed, I have to go every two weeks. Sigh.

Okay, I have looked at the website and considered the makeup just on the recommendations that I have read from you and in your comments.

I can’t figure out what shade I would be. I saw that you went with a light something, do you wish you had gone darker or lighter. What is your (anyone else’s) suggestion?

I was obsessed with the Bare Minerals informercial until I finally bought the make-up at the Mall of America — there is a stand-alone Bare Minerals store there and they made up my face to show me how to use all the stuff! I bought the concealer, foundation, blush and mineral veil — yeah, four things, but once you get the hang of it, you can get your face on in just a few minutes. On the occasions that I do wear make-up, I think it’s pretty good stuff. I would highly recommend using all four products in tandem. They’re all available on the Bare Escentuals Web site. If (in addition to an addiction to late-night viewing of infomercialsI you enjoy watching the Food Network, you will know that Bare Minerals CEO Leslie Blodgett is also one of the “guests” on Easy Entertaining with Michael Chiarello — on some episodes she will be there helping Michael in the kitchen. I wonder if he gets free Bare Minerals just for being her friend?

Sundry, you look beautiful in both.
As for the blush comment from jonniker I use bareMinerals® All-Over Face Color in True and it works well with the bareminerals. I put it on after the foundation, but before the mineral veil.
Debbie, I couldn’t figure out what shade I was either. I started with the light kit. One advantage to this makeup is you can blend the different colors to create your own custom color. I use fair now, but I do have some fairly light and light too. I guess if I ever got some sun on my face I might need a darker color.
There are people on ebay selling starter kits that contain very small quantities. It might be an idea to try colors out that way before you invest in a bigger jar. If you do get a shade that’s wrong, save it, you can blend it with another. This stuff is very forgiving. Just don’t use too much. And you need a good brush to buff it in.
God, I sound like I work for them too! But I do love this makeup.

Just a tip: I don’t use the Bare Minerals whatever it’s called for concealer under the eye. I picked up Origins concealer for my under eye circle. It’s liquid, does a great job, less than $10 and works great with the mineral make up.

Just a tip: I don’t use the Bare Minerals whatever it’s called for concealer under the eye. I picked up Origins concealer for my under eye circle. It’s liquid, does a great job, less than $10 and works great with the mineral make up.

I because obsessed after reading about this makeup here, of course, of course! (Even though I am VERY happy with my Burts Bees products. But before and after photos? Come on!) I did some research after I saw the prices of the bareMinerals products, and apparently other cosmetic companies (L’Oreal, Physicians Formula, etc) are starting to make mineral makeup too. Our Whole Foods doesn’t carry Burts Bees powder, so this weekend I bought some Physicians Formula Mineral Powder while grocery shopping as recommended by Real Simple magazine (do I not sound like a commercial for about fifty million products right now?) and I love it! It’s fantastic, and was only nine dollars.

Real Simple also taught me how to get cat and dog hair off the couch.

Just saying.

“I because” = “I become”. Obviously.

I’ve seen that stuff in Sephora but I normally keep walking. You look great and it’s nice that it doesn’t take away from your natural beauty. I’m def gonna buy it now!

Glad to help with costume ideas for your little suctopus. :)

Or um. “became”

You are so cute, with or without the makeup! In the second picture, though, you look all innocent and young.

I’ve used it bare minerals several years and have always been happy with it. I’m one of those shiny in an hour people. It takes about 6 hours for my grease to finally start it’s glowy thing. Sometimes QVC has really great kits for cheap. As for the eyebrows….several years ago I had a horrible waxing incident at the salon. She not only waxed off HALF of one of my eyebrows, she also managed to get big globs of wax in my freshly highlighted hair. I’ve been trying to get that half to grow back but it goes all Burgess Meredith on me and then I simply must pluck. I’ve grown out my hair so that no one notices unless I pull it back in a pony tail. I’m currently TRYING to grow it out. I’m suckin it up and leaving it alone…FOR NOW.

has anyone said that you have simply gorgeous eyes? and that they’re huge and gorgeous?
awesome. in both pics, actually… awesome. Happy Monday!

Hey, I was just gonna say your eyebrows look great, but I gues that just shows my true ignorance in eyebrow hygiene! I am a lazy plucker; I only wax when it’s been a while and I’m looking Brooke Shieldian.

To see a real world example of this make-up is great! The second photo looks incredibly nature and not like you’re wearing make-up at all, I need some of this stuff.

I’m currently growing out my eyebrows because of a home plucking mishap and they need to be fixed, it’s torture.

As soon as your page opened, I saw the first picture of your face and my first thought was wow, she has great skin! And then I realized it was a “before” picture! Yes, I can see a difference in the second but you look absolutely radiant in both. JEAL. OUS.

I used to be an overplucker until one day I saw a recent photo of myself and actually gasped out loud at how horrible they looked. I completely stopped plucking for nearly a month (except for the outliers) and once I had my natural arch back, I easily plucked away the excess and now I totally, totally

Hmm, why did that happen? To finish my sentence, I was going to say I totally love my eyebrows, even though it was nearly gut-wrenching to not pick up my tweezers for so long. Also, I had to perfect the art of avoiding eye contact…I’m it was a scary for thing for anyone to witness. But it was totally worth it.

You look great! I have tried BE too, but I can’t get it to stay fresh for long. Too oily I guess.

Ditto on the gorgeous eyes.. very soulful.

I may be going to check out LUSH at the snobby mall tonight! My first visit! I know you are an aficionado.. what are your favs?

Thanks Sundry! Will check those items out!

I know they have an amazing selection, will have to make a list so I have some focus. HA!

I love that the makeup gets rid of the redness etc but doesn’t hide the freckles. I have a love hate relationship with my freckles but I love them completely on other people. It gives people a healthy look… And your before photo shows what lovely skin you have to begin with so you are very lucky. Me, I am in my 2nd trimester and def don’t have that glow everyone talks about – my skin is worse and I am getting pimples everywhere grrr!

You look great, before and after. And honestly, I noticed your eyebrows and thought they looked very neat and not overplucked. I almost bought the mineral goodness but opted for some tinted moisturizer instead… it just seemed like way too many brushes. I’m so glad you found something you like! Yay.

Wow, you’ve got great skin to start with! I love how unmakeuppy the after picture looks (as in, no obvious makeup, just natural perfection)! I always feel weird when my freckles get covered by foundation. It’s cool that it evens tone but doesn’t cover everything up. I wonder how it would work on my acne-polkadotted skin.

Thanks for the reviews! I’m totally gonna try it next time I’m at Sephora. (You should totally get paid for your endorsements, because I often buy/read/watch things you recommend!)

Thanks for the Orgasm rec (heh. I’m glad I didn’t actually *say* rouge.) For what it’s worth, I have the Orgasm gloss, and it’s really nice, if a little too pale for my lips (I have highly pigmented lips, and it washes me out, but in a blush, it would be perfect) if you’ve ever considered it. Long lasting and not so sticky your hair clings to your lips like a bad rug.

Cris: Get the bath bombs, any kind, but especially the Honey Bee. And Sympathy for the Skin cream. Ooh ooh, and the best thing there is the Honey I Washed the Kids soap and Soft Coeur massage bar (the scent matches the Honey Bee bomb).

I hope you’ll give us a review of Snakes on a Plane. I have a wholly unreasonable fear of snakes and I travel a lot for work so there’s no way in hell I’d see the movie. (Boy, do I hope none of the airlines decide that SoaP is a good in-flight choice!!!!) I’m strangely fascinated by the movie’s camp factor and would like to hear what you thought!

Can you come and pluck mine?? I cannot admit to how often I … shhhhh… shave them out of sheer laziness.

I asked Amalah a similar eyebrow question ’cause I am an EXTREME plucker, ’cause I have blonde hair and dark eyebrows. Alas, apparently we do have to grow our eyebrows out. I need like a stick-on eyebrow + surrounding skin for that time period, because eyebrow stubble isn’t the best look ever.

I hate you for posting this comparison because so far I’ve resisted forking out the cash for this product (when I have a brand new bottle of foundation I paid $50 for…) but now I’m not going to be able to resist. Your skin looks great!

P.S. You’re cute as a button.

Dude all the way through that I was thinking what great eyebrows you have. Great shape, not too thin, not too bushy.

Plus I want the freckles.

Thanks for the pictures! That stuff looks great and you look so refreshed without looking like you put make-up on at all.

Okay, what skintype do you have? I like that coverage: it looks even without looking “made up”.

I think your eyebrows are pretty. I messed mine up a few years back, plucked them way to thin. I waited for a camping trip to let them grow out. :)

I had been really wanting to try the mineral makeup, and happened across the Physician’s Formula Mineral Makeup in the store. It gives pretty good coverage – I bought the foundation and the powder, but I find that the powder gives nice coverage itself (and I have pretty bad skin).

You are lovely Sundry, with or without makeup.

You’re beautiful, as always! And also very young — wait until your eyesight is so bad you have to buy those tweezers with the magnifying glass and light to do your eyebrows…. Not that *I* would know, of course… (ahem). Not that *I* ever order anything from “As seen on TV”…. =)

Whoa – this may or may not be my first comment (I am daffy like that!)

I love the BE stuff and you look great!

When I got the kit, I secretly watched the DVD when The Husband wasn’t home to mock me. And for the poster who was having trouble using it as concealer – I use a Neutrogena tinted undereye cream thingie. All about the two-steps-in-one here.

Oh, and wanted to tell you that Riley is the cutest. The Husband agrees, referring to him as “that cute internet baby.”

OK- just wanted to remind you that the NYT, harbinger of all things au courant for the masses, has only recently implored said masses to Throw Your Tweezers Away because, as the article states, “Autumn’s most prized pelt is the hairy eyebrow.”

This works well for me as I have been rocking my Grandpa’s eyebrows since I ran out of time to pay attention to them ohhhhhhhh…nearly 2 years ago.

The article is found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/17/fashion/17skin.html?_r=1&oref=slogin (I hope this link works for you, I am not a tech savvy html (or anything else)-ite).

I like your new makeup!!

My mom, after having seen it on QVC, has been wearing this for ages. Kept telling me to try it. Begged me to try it even. The day you wrote about it and said you liked it… yeah, I totally went to Sephora and bought it. Maybe you should be getting paid as the spokesperson… ad people are you reading???

You’re gorgeous, dewy-skinned, and adorable in BOTH pics.

Eyebrows are an obsession of mine: they were so pale when I was growing up that other kids used to tease me that I had no eyebrows, and even my mother used to tell me I looked “like a hardboiled egg.” She was always after me with the eyebrow pencil (and I was just a KID!). So I think about brows a lot, and am always doing things to my own.

So — here’s my eyebrow assvice: if you want to grow out the brows, make the short little annoying new hairs less conspicuous as they grow in by bleaching them. You can use the cream that people use on their upper lips. Apply it with a toothpick to make sure you just hit the hairs that are coming in. The new little hairs will still be annoying, but you might be able to tolerate them until they’ve grown to a reasonable length? Then of course when they’re long enough you’d have to reverse the process and have them dyed at Gene Juarez — they do a good job for me. After the bleaching the hair will be porous and the brows will pick up the dye pretty well and you’ll have nice dark strong well-defined brows (of course Gene Juarez will offer to shape them for you, but I find they tend to overdo the shaping and my brows are too thin after.) However, on the day you have them dyed, you have to bleach ALL the hair in the brow so as to make sure that all the brow hair picks up the dye evenly.

OR — you could just use a brow pencil or gel to color over the short hairs as they come in. I know people who swear by Origins Just Browsing but it hasn’t worked so well for me.

Sorry for the long lecture — but I totally feel the pain of feelign like the eyebrows are too sparse, pale, thin, etc. Mine are practically nonexistant and without a lot of pencil, I really do look like, well, not a hardboiled egg, but like Vermeer’s “Portrait of a Young Woman,” http://www.ballandclaw.com/vermeer/uyc.html.

I gotta tell you… I use that mineral stuff on the odd days I can wear make-up. I don’t wear regular blush… I use the “warm” as a sort of bronzer instead. No trouble with sticking and looks more natural than regular blush. Then again, they also have their own OTHER make-up, so you could always get roped into that if you wanted something pinker.

ah…i used to be a chronic plucker.
you have to bite the bullet and let it grow a little bit. it sucks in the beginning, but you’ll be glad you did it when you can go and get perfectly waxed eyebrows.

I too am in love with that make up! Anyway, about the waxing- I go every two weeks to have them waxed. That is plenty of time for me because the hair is growing out but isn’t noticeable.

Amanda

I have always wondered if it could be as good as the infomercial claims… good to know, just in case I ever decide I want to stop being a hippie and start wearing makeup.

And I just wanted to add — you know that “you’re your own toughest critic” saying? Definitely true. Your after AND before pictures look great. Your skin is beautiful (even without the makeup!) and I wish I could get my hair to look like that… unfortunately, I am slave to the curl and the east coast humidity.

You are so cute! Thanks for posting the before and after shots. I really need to try that makeup now, primarily because you report that it feels almost invisible.

Rock on with your Bare Ecsensuals. I see you used the “warmth”. Nice touch.

Did you ever watch the DVD? I never did and I think I figured it out okay, but I’m curious as to what secrets they impart.

It *does* look great, and frankly, I think Bare Escentuals should sling you some free product, with all the sales you’re making for them, but HOW DOES IT COME OFF????!

Ohh, I know I am late to the game and I’ve never even commented before, even though I have been reading for ages, but the eyebrow question inspired me…
You should go see Tina Powers at the Nordstrom in Northgate Mall in Seattle- she works for Anastasia Brow Studio. She’s been waxing and shaping my eyebrows for about a year now… Every once in a while I cheat and go somewhere else and then promptly regret it. I didn’t think it was possible, but she makes my eyebrows look so amazing that my male, science geek co-workers compliment me on them. Seriously.
You will probably have to grow them out a bit, but mine were totally over done when I got started with her, and she helped me fix them so the growing out bit wasn’t too horrible. Totally, totally worth it.

I was completely sucked in to the BE infomercial and was foaming at the mouth to order and then I got a load of the price & didn’t call. I did go to their website and was quite nervous about the limited amount of colors to choose from. I ended up finding a different product (thank you Google) and it’s cheaper and they have WAY more colors to choose from for foundation and such. I love this makeup you can find it at mineralbasics.com They have samples so you can try multiple colors without a big $$$ committment. One thing I don’t use it for is under my eyes, it seems to get in the little lines and make them look like big lines. I still use a cream concealer for that spot, but otherwise I’m completely converted.
I’m currently trying to abstain from over plucking and I think I may need a 12 step program. Good luck.

Hello webmaster Sundry, the site looks really good!