Product Review - Too Faced Shadow Insurance Eye Primer

Hello my lovelies! Well, you may remember me saying a few months ago that I couldn't get my hands on this eye primer for love nor money. So you'll be pleased to hear that this is available individually at Boots stores but as it had sold out in my local Boots I managed to get hold of it in the Eye Shadow Insurance Policy kit at Debenhams. This includes an excellent eye shadow palette but that's for another juicy instalment for another day ; )

This post today will be looking at the eyeshadow primer and whether it's a fine enough match to Urban Decay's legendary Primer Potion that thousands of you all know and love! With that in mind, below is Too Faced's introduction to their Shadow Insurance primer...

Your full-coverage insurance policy against all fading, creasing, melting, blurring, oil-slicked and hard-to-blend eye shadow accidents. Our silicone-based eye shadow primer transforms any eye shadow into a perfectly blendable color-drenched intensified version of itself then locks it down perfectly until you take it off. Our skin soothing formula evens out the skin tone on your lids and smoothes out lines while it secures a barrier between the oils of your skin and your makeup so no shadow catastrophes will ever happen again.

Secures against fading, creasing, melting, blurring, oily lids and hard-to-blend eye shadows?

Yes to all of the above! This primer is just as good as the Urban Decay primer at preventing fading eye shadows, stopping them from hiding in the creases in the eye and combatting the oil in the skin from dissolving the eye makeup. Eye shadows are also equally easy to blend when you apply them over the top of this primer, I am quite used to blending shadows on top of primers now rather than without so I don't know if there's a remarkable difference in the ease of blending. Needless to say however blending is perfect with the primer so a full thumbs up there.

Eyeshadows become perfectly blendable and intensified until you take them off?

Yes! Again with the above for blending but yes, all eye shadows come out remarkably when you use this primer. You'll wonder how you ever managed without it if you've never used an eye primer before. It will make your shadows ten times more intensified and that colour will last all day. When you get back in from a long day at work - check it out in the mirror and it'll be just as great as when you left that morning...

Skin soothing formula evens out skin tone and smoothes out lines?

I'm not sure about 'skin-soothing' - I don't feel any particular soothing sensations when using it, but the product is gentle on the skin and doesn't feel as 'cakey' as its counterpart from Urban Decay sometimes can. But it definitely evens out the skin tone on the eyelids which is an added bonus from using a primer.

I'm also not sure about the smoothing-out of lines as none of the people I've used this on so far have to worry about these! However if you're talking about the tiny creases in the upper eyelid that shadow can creep into, then this primer does a fantastic job of eliminating any shadow from ever disappearing into them!

Overall...

This product is just as amazing as Urban Decay's which came as very little surprise to me because Too Faced Cosmetics is owned by the same people who own Urban Decay! However in my opinion this product trumps Urban Decay's because it comes in an easy-to-use squeezy tube so unlike the Urban Decay Primer Potion:

• Product has nowhere to hide, i.e. in the curves of an awkwardly-shaped bottle meaning no product wastage and fuss-free application
• It's much more hygienic as you can squeeze enough out (literally all you need is a pin-sized amount for both eyelids) onto the hand rather than using an applicator which over time will get germy. This in turn affects the product's quality in the long-run (the bacteria affects the ingredients in the primer causing it to lose its effectiveness)
• And quite simply it's much easier to get the primer from the tube!

If Urban Decay's Primer Potion is the primer of dreams for you, but the bottle has been driving you round the bend I thoroughly recommend this as an alternative. At £11 it also comes in at the same price as Urban Decay - fairly pricey but this will last you easily at least 6 months if not more. The only inconvenience is getting hold of it is difficult because stock levels seems so erratic... Too Faced just need to send stock to their consumer retailers more regularly!

You can buy Shadow Insurance from Boots, Debenhams and online at ASOS.

Three wishes!

I've never been able to get my eyeshadow or eyeliner to sit where it should. If I put eyeshadow on in 2-3 hours it will have disappeared - I only end up finding it in the creases of my eyelids hidden from all to see!
The same goes for eyeliner - off it pops into the crease of my eye when it's supposed to be on my upper lash line and worst still - tumbling down my face when it's supposed to be on my lower lash line - making me look like the Sweeney Todd!

I'd been reading tonnes of rave reviews about Urban Decay's Primer Potion so I had to see what all of the fuss was about. It's won a few awards as best cosmetic product by many magazines and retailers.
Ever since I can remember Urban Decay's counters have always got me excited, they have awesome names for their products (Asphyxia and Acid Rain to name just a couple)! Their packaging is quirky and very pretty with lots of gorgeous colours of lipglosses, eyeliners and eyeshadows to boot!

Their Primer Potion, as you can see from the piccie on the right, comes in a cute little purple bottle with a silver lid. The packaging has been designed to look a little like a genie's lamp with the swirly details etc. The lid acts as an applicator, and when you open the bottle you'll see a brush attached for application.

It's approx. £11.50 for a bottle, but I got hold of a full size bottle included in the Ammo Eyeshadow box set - which is to celebrate Urban Decay's 10th birthday! (Go get it now!) The first thing to note with this product is very little goes a long, long way - a product feature that I ALWAYS love! In fact if you use too much you won't get begin to notice adverse effects, such as it can either cause crinkling in your eyeshadow (which makes your eyelids look aged) or it creates a layer that's hard to work with and causes difficulty when trying to blend the shadows. So go easy with it. What comes out on the applicator will be enough for one eyelid! Also make sure to blend it in with your fingers or a brush before you apply your eyeshadow!

The primer promises three benefits: more intense colour, no creasing and eyeshadow and eyeliner that stays put all day! I can certainly vouch for all three! The difference between eyeshadow used with and without this product is amazing! I even noticed it on the back of my hand when I sampled some in-store and that was with the sample bottle of Primer I'd used having only the dregs left in it!

No creasing is certainly guaranteed, each time I had a look at my eyelids during the day, I couldn't see any shadow creeping into the creases of my lids. And finally yes, the eyeshadow stayed where it was meant to, by the end of the day my eyeshadow looked the same as it did when I first applied it in the morning! I was very impressed! My sister can also vouch for this as I did her make-up using the Primer for a special occassion and she said it did not budge!

The only down side is its packaging, which is a common bugbear of many a make-up lover! The bottle is pretty but also pretty small - however I know that this stuff will last me a long time because I only need to use very, very little at a time. Due to the curves in the bottle, a lot of primer hides away. So when you think you've ran out, in actual fact you have a lot more left than you think! I've been hearing from other users that you can even get another 6-12 months' worth of use out of the remaining primer that sits in the curves.

The only way to get to it is to get a junior hacksaw or knife and and cut open the bottle at both beneath the bottle's neck and half an inch above the bottom to empty the contents out. You can find tutorials on how to do this on YouTube. Be sure however to empty the primer into a well-sealed container or the primer will dry out and become useless! If you're a bit worried about cutting the bottle yourself I'd suggest getting someone to help as you don't want any nasty accidents!

Overall I think it would be a good idea for Urban Decay to reconsider their packaging for this product, however I can see where they're coming from, as it does communicate the unique genie in a bottle message! But it might be worth them making it so you can pull out a stopper at the bottom of the bottle or something similar so customers can get to the remainder that hides!