"It"

Yup. I've been tagged. Thanks to the lovely Lisa Neff over at Fleurs-de-Lisa, who did the tagging.

So here goes: My top ten favourite cosmetics/beauty items, in no particular order.*

1. e.l.f. mineral primer - I can't tell you how many primers I tried. I was completely unimpressed by all of them. Lorac, Smashbox, too-faced, etc. None of them made my skin look any better or my makeup wear any longer. Just an extra step. Until I tried e..l.f. (and later The Porefessional). My skin loves silicones, and they make a wonderful barrier for sealing my  moisturizer in and keeping my skin from trying to slurp any foundation off my face. It does a so-so job of minimizing my pores and fine lines and does make my foundation glide on beautifully. Plus it feels creepy and weird on my fingers before I apply it - it's a gel-like formula, but it feels all velvety and non liquid. I love that. Science! It's my current HG primer, along with Porefessional, which has a nice light tint to it and is slightly better at hiding pores (and a lot more expensive). I try to buy all of my e.l.f. products in stores, like Target or Kmart or something, since ordering from their site can be a nightmare.

2. Pure Face Organics Day Moisturizer I found a bottle of this, for like, 2 dollars on clearance somewhere. It's amazing. My skin absolutely loves it and it feels like heaven. Smells a bit weird, but the scent grows on you after a bit. I've no idea what in particular works so well for me, but it's hands-down the best moisturizer I have ever used. I'm scraping the last bits out of the bottle before I order a new one at $18. I've also used the eye cream - meh, and the night cream, which breaks me out, badly. There are two more products in the line I have yet to try, but even if this one item is the only thing they offer that works for me, it works so well, I'll still be happy.

3. Evil Shades Matte Silk  EvilAngel claims that this powder is only Rice Powder, Magnesium Myristate, Calcium carbonate, Titanium dioxide, Zinc oxide, Silicon Dioxide, Cyclopentasiloxane.  She's lying. It also contains a teeny-tiny invisible airbrush artist who will make your skin look absolutely amazing when  you dust this stuff on. Or Fairy Dust. Or something, 'cause it's magic in a jar. The first time I tried it, I actually did a double-take at my reflection. I looked that good. It even looks good when you wear it all by itself. Seriously - if you don't own this,  you should. It's the first product I've ever tried that not only lived up to it's claims, but exceeded them by a whole huge mega-bunch. Another HG item.

4. Caravan Herbals Nourishing Cleansing Oil I use this for the oil cleansing method and it has improved my skin by leaps and bounds. My rosacea is calmer, my skin is less dry and desert-y. It's soothing, both facially and mentally and it works without breaking me out. What more can you ask of a product! The number of things I can't put on my skin greatly exceeds the number I can, so I'm always thrilled to find a good product that I can actually use.

5. Meow Pampered Puss Foundation in a blend of Snow Lynx and Inquisitive Sphinx. One of the very few foundations I've found that matches my pasty whiteness. The blend varies from season to season, anywhere between 50-50 to 25-75. My skin is a goth girls dream. Or it would be if it weren't so thin, delicate, sensitive and rosacea prone. For me, foundation is more than just a way to make my skin look better, it's a physical shield between my skin and a whole world full of irritants. Meow's foundation is simple, basic and soothing and protects and prettifies my skin without aggravating it. I do have to apply lightly, since powder foundation can look like crap on dry skin, but, overall, I'm much happier with this than I have been with any commercial or liquid foundation I've tried.

6. Yes To! towelettes. I use both the blueberry and the cucumber, usually in the morning, or when I have mascara to wipe off. They do the job, my skin loves them and they're simple and easy. I hate the way the blueberry ones smell, but my skin really likes them, so I've just learned to live with it. I learned a long time ago to give my skin what it wants or pay the consequences.

7.Benefit Badgal Plum mascara - thought it was time to throw in a bit of color. I have good lashes. They're long, black and clearly defined. All I really need in a mascara is enough colour to make them show up against any shadow I'm wearing and to not clump up. Far too many mascaras either turn my lashes into a terrifying chunky mess or end up smeared all over my brow-bone/undereye area. I like a simple, basic brush with deep bristles to coat my entire lash instead of just the tip, and I hate the kind with a crap-ton of fibers, which eventually migrate into my eye. I love the plum colour for daytime wear, as it brightens my olive green eyes. This isn't the best mascara I've ever tried, but it is the best plum mascara I've found, since I only wear black for more dramatic looks. For black, I prefer Revlon 3-D Extreme.

8. Fake Nails - any brand really. Revlon are very nice. I'm wearing Broadway Fashion Express 'Fame' at the moment. I'm a biter. And I don't mean 'a little nibbling on the edge of a snagged nail' biter. I mean a 'gnawing the nail down to the bloody nub then chomping away the the cuticles, ripping the skin off until I have to wear band-aids on all my fingers' biter. Seriously. I'd show you a picture of my nails without any enhancements but you'd gag. And probably have nightmares for years to come. I used to have my nails done with acrylic gel at the salon, but that is expensive, time-consuming and inconvenient. Plus, breathing in the salon fumes, even for the hour or so it takes to have my nails done always left me with a horrible headache and sinus problems. I want my nails to look nice, but more in a 'normal human who has not recently been attacked by a rabid rodent' way rather than a perfectly done 'just stepped out of the salon' way. Glue-on nail technology has progressed dramatically since my youth, and a good pair looks convincing and lasts me about a week, even with knitting, typing, cleaning and gardening type activities. Plus if I want polish, I can do it before I put them on, since my polishing skills are the equivalent to a spastic four-year olds.

9. Morgana Cryptoria Lip Balm in Nevermore Everything that makes a balm wonderful, plus colour. Okay, it's a bit stiffer than your average balm, which is good, otherwise it'd end up looking all smeary and Joker-y. But it's still nicely moisturizing and with a wonderful warm mauvey-violety ever so subtle sparkle. The perfect fusion of lip balm and lipstick. Plus it's available in more colours than any one person can possibly use. (Not that we won't try).

10. Hair dye. Usually in some shade of cool red. Right now it's Garnier Nutrisse Ultra Colour R3  with Splat! Luscious Raspberries over it. I've had every colour of hair imaginable in my time. (except green. I've yet to find a green I like.) I love brightly coloured hair. One of these days, I'll do a post about it. I change my hair colour constantly, depending on what catches my eye or my mood. I'd rather go outside naked with no makeup than have boring hair. Plus my hair is ultra-short, so if I screw it up, it grows out in like, three weeks. Neither of these two are the best or the brightest dyes I've ever used, but they hold up well through multiple washings and I'm lazy, so it's working for me right now.

Now to spread the love: 10 wonderful bloggers chosen semi- randomly from my daily reading list:

glostix

Hebridian Sprite

Liber Vix
Metamorphosis

Morgaine's Realm 

Skulda's Claws

TheArtIsMakeup

The Urban Critique

Unlaced Beauty

Vulcan Butterfly

**Rules of the Top 10 Award**
1.  Thank the person who tagged you and link to their blog.
2.  Put the Top 10 Award logo on your blog.
3.  List your Top 10 cosmetics/beauty items.
4.  Choose 10 bloggers to tag, link to their blogs, and let them know.

*I expanded the tag from just cosmetics to include beauty items, because beauty is more than just face-paint and I'm not sure I could come up with 10 cosmetic items without repeating myself.