Hello on this Labor Day, dumplings!
One of you wrote to me (thank you, Kathleen!) to ask my opinion of the overpriced, underwhelming BoomSticks, whose chief virtue is to make you look like you’ve had a few drinks or spent too much time outside with no SPF on your face:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUnGvXRBPAg
These products make me so mad. They try to convince women that sweeping a tube of basically red product over one’s face is an improvement. It is not. Here’s copy from their website:
“A universal color, designed for every skin tone.
NO NEED TO CHOOSE A COLOR. THIS BOOMSTICK ALREADY MATCHES YOUR SKIN.
Boomstick Color is sheer enough that it allows your natural skin tone to show through. That’s why Boomstick Color easily works with every woman’s skin tone from chocolate to porcelain (and every color in between).”
Nonsense. There is no universal color that works for every skin tone. If there was, it would have to be so sheer that it would basically amount to an application of Vaseline over one’s cheeks.
For your money and your time, you can all get much better products. Using one color for your cheeks, eyes and lips is ill-advised for anyone with uneven skin tone, and that’s pretty much all of us past the age of 25. A product that is emollient enough for a blush is not going to do anything but wear off instantly on your lips. And no, you should not swipe sheer red over your eyesocket. If you want to brighten that area of shadows, try something like Mac Paint Pot in Bare or Painterly, which are applied with your finger and are designed to stay on all day. They also make a very good primer for eyeshadow, but I wear Bare on its own all the time. $23 sounds like a lot for an eyeshadow but this will last you at least a year with constant use.
The Boom Stick blush seems fine for someone who wants a sheer product, but I certainly wouldn’t recommend buying a set or falling for that whole “BoomStick Lifestyle” pitch. I clutched my pearls and gasped, “MADAME, NO” when I watched a review video by a friendly Southern gal who described rubbing the facial moisturizing stick on her hands and fingers. Ma’am, there are lotions and creams and unguents galore for that! Keep your face stick out from under your nails. *shudder*
Now I’m cranky. You all deserve so much better than that, but you have to do a bit of trial and error finding products and shades that work for YOU. Women are not generic. There is no “universal shade,” just a company that wants to make a bucket of money trying to convince you otherwise (BOOM’s founder, Cindy Joseph, died of cancer of 2018).
Talk to you soon! And remember, I’m here for individual make-up and image consults on a sliding scale fee. All my consulting fees go to support a talented, brilliant young woman’s education in Nicaragua. Things are really really bad down there right now. It helps me keep perspective…
MWAH!
Thanks for the advice. I thought the Boom blush looked right for me (blue toned) and was intrigued by the highlighter. But I try to buy cardboard tubed makeup on Etsy. This works out half the time. I’ll get this highlighter.
I’m so sad to read that Cindy Joseph indeed died two years ago.
I understand why Boom still uses her image—although they slowly pulled back on that over the past two years. I was barraged by their ads for 6 months. Probably because I’m a Gmail and Google user and they saw my search terms.
As an organic lady who seldom wore makeup, Boom is perfect for my lifestyle. I love the Naked face look. As I get older, the naked look needs help, but makeup gets in the lines and defeats the purpose of beauty. Organic naked face ladies like the minimalist idea. We want natural ingredients, ultra-limited time in front of the mirror. It is sad that Cindy has been gone two years, but hay, if I could have my image behind a creative project I designed with amazing marketers, I would be thrilled. For my family of women, we love love love the glowy, blush look that happens with a few swipes of Boom Stick. Its worth the cost. For very special outings I wear Luminous Spray makeup which also takes seconds to apply.