Too Faced Shadow Insurance For Long-Lasting Eyeshadow!

Too Faced Shadow Insurance ($17.00) is the latest in eyeshadow bases. The often coveted Urban Decay Primer Potion may find itself displaced by Too Faced’s Shadow Insurance. Both products are very similar, but the most drastic difference is in the packaging. UDPP is notoriously famous for its wasteful genie bottle shaped packaging, which leaves a ton of unused product behind it (when you think it’s empty). So much in fact that people have sliced theirs open and discovered months more of usage out of it!

Enter Shadow Insurance: slim, tube packaging. It allows you to squeeze out the amount you need, and you’ll know when the tube gets empty. Of course, there may be some remnants left, so you can cut this baby open, too–but nowhere near the amount that gets suck in the curvature of the UDPP bottle. At $17, I do feel this is a little pricier than I’d like, because the amount you get is so, so small. The tube itself feels like you’d use it up in a week (you won’t), but the size is 0.35 oz. So here’s a lesson to learn: it’s not all about size. UDPP is 0.34oz and costs $16, so the two products are similar in size and cost, and I’m more familiar with how long UDPP lasts for people (months!). This helped put me at ease as I stared at the pint-sized tube of Shadow Insurance. I could rest easy, I could use it without fear of using it up.

I have more to say!

Shadow Insurance is a base you lay down before you apply shadows on your eye lids. The whole point of a base is to reduce/minimize/stop fading, creasing, etc. of your eyeshadow. It’s supposed to increase how long and vibrant your shadows look and keep it lasting all day long. Shadow Insurance delivers on all points–it kept my makeup from creasing or fading from AM to PM. It is a silicone-based eyeshadow primer, for those wary about silicone products; while my face seems to be sensitive to higher levels of silicone ingredients (cough, Smashbox Photofinish!), I didn’t have issues with it on my eyes.

A little goes a long way to cover the lid, and I found using a small flat, stiff brush (like a concealer brush) worked well to apply the primer from the tube to my lid. I just squeezed a dot of it onto the brush, then applied from my upper lash line to just underneath my brow bone. It gave me a great base to work with to keep shadows on during the day. I’ll still opt for a colored base (like pigments) for more vibrancy, but I like Shadow Insurance as a good neutral color that’ll work with anything you throw at it.

The big issue with it is how the product will separate!  By separate, I mean that the ingredients come apart and the primer is no longer a primer but this liquid-y oily mix of yuck.  You have to massage the tube a bit prior to every use in order to keep it in check.