It is a sad day for PeaceBang and her crow’s feet. Kiehl’s has discontinued their wonderful Ultra Moisturizing Eye Gel with SPF 15. After doing an on-line search I have found and ordered my last tube at MakeMeHeal.com (a strange little site devoted to providing services and products to folks who’ve had cosmetic surgery) and will be on the look-out for something as good to replace this beloved gel. Eye gel is something you just can’t stockpile, since the active ingredients won’t last beyond a year or so.

It is VERY hard to find an eye gel that firms, moisturizes and protects from the sun. I loved this product because it left a bit of shine behind that brightened my face and gave me a bit of a youthful glow.

And there was wailing and gnashing of teeth heard throughout all of Norwell.

Someone wrote to PeaceBang today asking about how to cover up dark circles under the ole eyes, so before she skips off to write her newsletter column and watch Part IV of “John Adams” on HBO, PeaceBang will try to offer some helpful advice.

First, she’ll share what she thinks is pretty unhelpful advice on the subject, which she found by a blogger named “NY Make-Up Artist.” Not to malign New York Make-Up Artist’s skills or sage wisdom, but PeaceBang thinks that the following regimen

# Powder the area under your eyes with very fine translucent powder to set the corrective concealer, and then go over the area one more time with your regular, everyday concealer (the one that matches the rest of your happy, non-discolored skin).

P.S. If you have no idea why you constantly have dark circles under your eyes – if you have no reason to believe that your recurring dark circles are hereditary or caused by allergies, for example – you might want to see a dermatologist, who can determine whether your dark circles are caused by poor circulation.

Here’s PeaceBang again, who agrees with the author above in one detail: to cover dark circles, it really is worth the time and effort to find the right formulation for your skin and the particular hue of your circles. When PeaceBang gets the Walter Mondale bags on important occasions, she follows this routine:

1. For puffiness, ice and lots of water. Witch hazel on pads over the eyes for five to ten minutes (if there’s time). Application of a firming eye cream kept in the fridge.

2. When eyes are dry and hydrated with a day cream of some sort (that’s had time to fully absorb into the skin, and nothing too oily), GENTLY apply a foundation with a very light touch (tap with edge of finger) to undereye area AND EYELID (don’t forget to blend into corner of eye/bridge of nose) as you apply to the rest of your face (or just to blotchy areas, as PB prefers to do, which means sides of nose, chin and forehead).

3. If skin still looks noticeably dark, use make-up brush to apply a very light coat of light-reflecting cover-up to circles under eyes. Choose a shade just one shade lighter than your skin color; nothing too obvious. Tinted products can work very well, as the article above details. Again, blend well into bridge of nose and surrounding area. You do NOT want to look as though you have clowny circles around your eyes.

4. With a small, fluffy brush, set the area with a translucent powder. Better yet, set the area with a light-reflecting powder. There are many on the market right now but PeaceBang has been using Revlon Skinlights for a thousand years (the same container, in fact, which is ridiculously huge: did they think I was going to douse my entire body in the stuff? I decant it into a smaller container and it’s still fine after all these years).

5. On dark circle days, avoid lots of eye make-up. Curl your lashes, load on the mascara, smudge some eyeliner on the top lid only, and use a bright lip color and sweep a pop of blush on to wake up your face.

6. Gentlemen, there is no reason on God’s green earth that those of you who have hereditary or fatigue-related dark circles can’t use a subtle product to make them less noticeable. You will look ten years younger and rested, and if that doesn’t matter to you, your eyes will be more expressive and less shadowed in the pulpit.

7. I travel with this wonderful product by Mac, which doubles as a foundation AND cover-up! It’s supremely blendable and comes in so many shades, you’re bound to find one that works for you.

8. If the dark circles are a new thing for you, consider dietary and hormonal changes. Dark circles under the eyes can be related to other health issues, so don’t hesitate to ask your doc about it. For some reason I remember hearing that dark circles can be caused by nasal congestion (NETI POT!) and also by vitamin deficiencies. Someone once told me to eat lots of leafy green veggies if I got dark circles, but I can’t swear by that.

Finally, can you believe someone has a blog that’s exclusively about this subject??? I couldn’t believe it, either, but here it is!

PeaceBang has a little swollen eye just now, probably from a head cold that is GONE after 24 hours because of the magic of Neti Pot, Neti Pot, Neti Pot… I am a tireless evangelist for the wonders of the Neti Pot! Here, for your viewing pleasure is that scary, bug-eyed woman Neti-potting her nose, in case you haven’t seen it. The trick is to breathe through your mouth and to keep a box of tissues nearby. Neti Pot is The Answer!!
Twenty minutes pouring warm salt water through my very stuffy schnoz on Sunday morning until both nostrils were clear, and then again Sunday night when I felt as sick and exhausted as a cat left out in a storm, and then again on Monday morning, has left me healthy and fine, while SweetieBang’s cold is settling in his chest for a walrusy cough and more sinus honking — That is my TESTIMONIAL! Amen! But I digress.

Because I have this tiny swelling in my left eyelid I have made sure to
(a) avoid all eye make-up for a few days and
(b) throw out my possibly infected mascara and
(c) clean all my eye make-up brushes, including my eyelash curlers.

Origins makes a fine spray cleaner, but a mild shampoo will do as well. Wash your brushes and applicators in warm, soapy (shampoo-y) water and rinse. Blot on a clean towel, re-shape and lay flat to dry.

If you have a sty (and I’m not sure this is a sty — it’s a very minor swelling that may be a result of rubbing my itchy eyes a lot on Sunday), do NOT share towels and washcloths. Launder pillowcases in hot water and apply a warm compress to the eye when you can.

Neti Pot! Neti Pot! Clean brushes! Health and happiness! Many exclamation points!

What gives? Is the air THAT dirty? Allergies? Cheapo drugstore brand solution that promises to clean and disinfect but lies through its teeth? Thoughts, wearer of contacts?

So, I’m a bit behind lately and have so many products to review for you! And speaking of behind, Weight Watchers is my new BFF. Even with a fellow foodie in the house and lots more forbidden foods around and tempting me, I’m still slowly but surely dropping the lbs. by writing everything down and getting back on program right away after I get off. The gym is also a major factor. I love that stupid gym now. It is SO GOOD to see results. Very few people but me notice the loss yet but it’s such a relief to just zip up the jeans and have some room to spare. It’s so good not to feel like a stuffed sausage in my sweaters. Best of all, I feel the urge to compulsively nosh my face much less frequently. That’s why I sing the praises of WW: they make explicit and easy the direct correlation between input of food and output of energy. For me, it takes away the emotional agita and guilt around over-eating. My thinking simply becomes: “Well, I ate a lot more today than I could have possibly burned off. That won’t result in a day of weight loss but weight gain. Do I choose that, or do I choose something else?” You can’t argue with calories — they’re not moral entities but chemical ones. You consume them or you don’t. You consume them in the form of fried calamari or in the form of a huge salad that will keep you fuller longer. I am spending more time in food preparation now than I ever have before, but it all weighs out fairly evenly since it takes time to get out of the car and pick up take-out, too.

For helping with refraining from compulsive overeating efforts, I would like to say hanks so much to the Online Ministry Posse. I hope you’re all doing well; please write in if you want support and prayers from “the compassionate void.”

While PeaceBang loved the space age silver packaging, she could often not get the bloody thing to twist open of a morning (before coffee), and by midday she found little black snowflakes peppering her cheeks, no doubt giving her the friends and congregants the impression that she was auditioning to be an extra in the latest bus-and-truck of “Les Miserable.”

3-D Lash is B-A-D. Stick with Max Factor Stretch & Separate Waterproof Mascara. Love, love, love it. It’s hard to find but you can order it online.

Anonymous Lovely Reader writes in,

I LOVE your blog. Thanks for taking time to share with the world in this way. You have had a positive effect on my life as I am now more aware of the implicit messages being sent by how I present myself. I now even dabble in make-up sometime.

In fact it is the make-up that brings me to my question. I just did a search of your previous blog entries and didn’t find anything that answered this question so I am writing directly to you. I rarely wear eye shadow, but had the opportunity to the other day. I went to put some on and realized that I had forgotten how to apply it in a fashionable way. I do understand the mechanics of applying it (brush on eyelid) but was mystified about where to put the contrasting color and if the contrast should be lighter or darker. Any tips would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Blessings,
Anonymous

PS Regarding the eyeshadow, I always wear glasses and am nearsighted. This has the effect of making my eyes look smaller than they really are.

Darling Anon,
Thank you for your kind words and praise. It seriously means a lot to the ‘Bang to know that this blog has helped you to more intentionally put yourself out there as a public leader who looks the part.

Eyeshadow is no big deal. You might start with a nice smudgy brown eyeliner — say, something by Revlon or Cover Girl — and line just the top of your lid with it, blend, and be done. Be sure to go all the way to the end of your lid and all the way in (you’ll smudge the inner corner so much it will be barely perceptible, but it’s important not to line only part of your eye if you’re a newbie at it). Of course you’ll want to add mascara (and PB never goes a day without curling her eyelashes first — they’re long, so why wouldn’t I take the extra ten seconds it takes to do something that creates such fabulous results?). I usually smudge a much lighter, shimmery brown under my lower lash and leave off the mascara on the lower lashes because it can get smudgy. What you don’t want is to draw two harsh lines drawn around your eyes. Blend! Blend!

Another thing I like to do a lot is to smudge a dramatically dark brown shadow with some gold in it all along my lid, making a little window-washer gesture with the brush as I hit the crease (NEVER EVER use those useless, cheap applicator sponges they give you in the package!! They apply the product in an absolutely inferior manner, they’re like something BARBIE would use, for God’s sake!). Thlen I curl my eyelashes and apply a ton of mascara. You could do the same thing, but with a more muted color. You just have to play around with the colors. They often look far more pigmented in the package at the drugstore than they really are.

I like a dramatic eye and a subtle lip (try to avoid wearing a bold eye and a bold lip at the same time — if you’re doing a big red mouth, just do a soft wash of color on the lids, curl your lashes and add mascara. Make sure your skin is flawless but avoid lots of blush, too).

I’m not so into this “wear a neutral color all the way up to the brow and contrast with a deeper color in the crease” look, because frankly it can look very 1980’s and the next thing you know, you’ll be sporting ginormous shoulder pads or big floppy bows at the neck or some other tragic Murphy Brown or “Designing Women” look that we’d all do much better to put out of our minds immediately.

PeaceBang is also nearsighted and alternates between contacts and glasses that make her eyes look smaller. None of that matters, but what does matter is to think about what look you want for your day. Am you just doing some visits and spending some time at the office? A smudge on the upper eyelid and mascara will do. Are we preaching? If we are, then I spend some time with “special effects” because I want my eyes to project to the back of the sanctuary. If that means icing puffy eyes, then I do it. If that means adding a few false eyelashes because I’m tired and I don’t want to look it, then on they go.

I love and adore eye make-up. It can make us look entirely different. But there is a lot of BAD, BAD eye make-up out there, so until you feel confident following a period of exploration, keep it simple. Browns are good, matte shadows are good (applied with a small finger-shaped BRUSH, NOT a sponge applicator), things with a bit of shimmer in them are good but not all over the lid, and if you’re dramatic enough, liquid eyeliner can be your best friend, especially the waterproof formulations.

If you have sparse brows don’t forget to include them in your eye make-up preparation! I never, ever appear for an event unless my eyebrows have been carefully filled in with powder. They are such an important frame for the face, especially if you wear glasses!

Hope that helps, Lovey.

I suspect that this eye cream would be doing even better things for my crow’s feet than my current Roc product with retinoids in it, but I’m not about to spend $33 to switch now. I’ll wait until my Roc is finished, which should be in about four months. So far I’m not impressed with it, but you do need to use an eye cream for awhile to see real benefits. I use some kind of eye cream religiously and I think it’s paying off, since a Florida woman at the karaoke bar the other night said she thought that I was TWENTY THREE or so!! God bless her dear, overly-tanned heart!! Speaking of which, the sun does still shine in the winter months, northern people, so let’s not forego our SPF protection as an excuse. PeaceBang is watching!

The trick is to trim them so they match your actual eyes. I won’t say that I didn’t look eccentic up close, but not so much so that anyone will be talking about it for more than, say, three or four decades. This is, after all, New England.

Ha ha, Smartypants!

I was therefore very pleased to find Mac Studio Stick SPF 15, a great product that I apply in four swipes across my face:
1. to even out red next to my nose
2. center of chin
3. between the eyebrows where it can get blotchy

I blend it out with a medium-sized make-up brush and I’m good to go.

This product comes in a whole slew of shades, so you’re bound to find one that matches you perfectly. And it stays on, making it worth the price in my book.
(Please remember, ladies and gents, that SPF 15 in your make-up hardly offers any protection from UVA/UVB rays, and wear an actual SPF product every day, typically as a moisturizer or however you work it.)

Second, we have Maybelline’s Waterproof Liquid Eyeliner…

…a great buy for less than $6. Liquid eyeliner is a dramatic look and not for everyone, but I rely on it for days I’ll be gone for many hours and won’t have time to reapply, blend and mess with regular pencil eyeliner.
I own liquid eyeliner in black, brown and blue, using brown on typical days (black can be too harsh, and you don’t want to wind up looking like Amy Winehouse). Blue is definitely not for beginners, as it can make you look like an 8th grader who just got her first amateur make-over for the Homecoming Dance (”ohmigod, Ginny, this blue eyeliner will make you look so totally hot and it will totally match your dress!!”).

The Maybelline waterproof liner has been a blessing these past humid summer Sundays when I would spend all day going from church service to church service, clapping, praying, singing my heart out, and sweating. I constantly feared a Tammy Faye Bakker (of blessed memory) situation, but this Maybelline stuff doesn’t budge no matter how damp I get. They apparently make an even MORE waterproof liquid eyeliner but unless you’re in Esther Williams’ line of work, I don’t think you need it.

And speaking of Miss Esther Williams (also of blessed memory), wouldn’t you just LOVE to know how the heck they kept her looking so gorgeous, take after take, underwater? How come she never looks all pruney and bedraggled? She just swims toward the camera with shiny red lipstick and a big beautiful smile. What a Hollywood goddess. Honestly. Now I want to go watch “Neptune’s Daughter.”