Lifestyle Choices

The brushes you use, the sponges and absorbent cotton, and even your mirror and lighting are all-important in getting good results from your makeup products. You need to acquire a collection of them, keeping your tools immaculately clean and using them every time you put on

your makeup. It is always tempting to put on an eye shadow with your finger or to apply powder with a dirty puff, but the results are never good, and the makeup you put on that way doesn’t last as long as it should. Also, many of the little padded wands and brushes supplied with eye shadows and cheek colors look great in their compacts but won’t really do the job of applying colors properly. And once any applicator wand or brush is dirty, you will never get good, smooth application from it.

Here is a suggested list of makeup tools as a general guideline. You need not buy all the things at once. The more expensive ranges of blushers, compact powders, and eye shadows sometimes contain sable or real-hair brushes, which are good enough to keep and will last for years. The other things you need you can buy from a shop that specializes in makeup products. Stage-makeup sellers usually have particularly good brushes, or you can sometimes get them from a good druggist. Buy brushes of real hair or sable. They are more expensive than other kinds, but the investment is worth it, since with the use most women give their makeup brushes, they will literally last a lifetime. You can find good brushes in an art supply shop, too. Their handles tend to be long, but these brushes look quite lovely in a jar on a dressing table.

• 2 large brushes for powder
• 3 slightly smaller brushes for blusher, highlighter, and shader
• 4 small brushes for eye shadows and for highlighting small areas 1 stiff toothbrush-like brush for brows
• 1 circular hard tiny brush for clearing excess mascara from lashes (this
  can be saved from a used mascara wand and then washed thoroughly)
• 1 fine-line lip brush
• In addition, you will want some sponges for applying foundation and liquid blushers. They can be either natural sponges (the tiny ones used for cosmetics) or white rubber sponges. I think the natural ones are best.
• Absorbent-cotton balls or pads
• Cotton-tipped sticks (the kind used for cleaning babies’ ears) for clearing away mascara accidentally smeared on your face and lipstick that has gone where it shouldn’t have
• Facial tissues

A spray bottle, used for misting plants, filled with pure spring water. The spray should be very fine so that using it will cover your skin with a delicate mist, not drops of water.

Good light—either natural light (which is best for applying any kind of makeup, because it gives a true picture of what colors are doing on your face) or ordinary incandescent lighting, which is second best.

Get as much light as possible—certainly on both sides of the mirror you are using. Fluorescent lighting is bad for makeup: It grossly distorts colors.

A scarf to tie back your hair while you are working is also useful.

It is important to keep your tools and brushes for makeup immaculate. The brushes can be washed in warm water with a little detergent shampoo or simple soap and then left to dry naturally in the air. The cotton of course is simply tossed out as you use it, as are the tipped sticks. Your makeup sponges will also come clean by washing them in soap or in shampoo—which is better at removing grease, especially in hard water, on which soap tends to form a scum. Wash them at least once a week and keep them well aired and ready for use.

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