Alert #MakeupMonday readers know that my makeup-related activity intensifies around visits to my daughter at Berkeley. I just visited her last week, and so of course we visited Ulta and Sephora at Bay Street in Emeryville, and while I went mostly just as the financier of Miyako’s bulk replacement of foundation, blush, and contour stick (all Clinique!), naturally I couldn’t be in the space without swatching everything in sight, and I walked away with one truly amazing new product, about whose existence I had not previously been aware.
The product is: Under Eye Brightening Corrector. The brand is my beloved Becca.
Now I wouldn’t blame you if you read this far and thought, “oh my god, she is such a sucker, some people will just fall for any and all marketing. Who needs something called a ‘corrector’? As if regular concealer isn’t enough?”
And old me (as in, the me of last week) would not have blamed you. Years back I bought a Smashbox undereye brightening primer that did precisely nothing (as is the case for all Smashbox products on my skin), and I was pretty much over the whole concept.
But Becca actually makes relatively few products. And the products they make have been so uniformly phenomenal on my skin (except for their blush, which as I discussed in another post, is too shimmery), that when I saw the product, I decided to swatch it on my hand.
And….wow. I could see right there that it was remarkable. It is slightly tinted, faintly sticky but in a good way, and has — like all Becca products — this subtle glow that is nothing at all like a shimmer, but just like an ever so delicate light-source. It slid right over the wrinkles in my skin, and left a perfectly smooth, brightened surface.
“Oh, dammit…..I….I…..loooove……Beccaaaaa…..sooo……muuuuuch….” I moaned to Miyako. “But, I don’t neeeeed another product! {sniff, sniff}”
Miyako: “well, but if it’s for EVERYDAY wear…?”
Me: “you’re right! I WILL wear it every day! I’m sure!”
And so, I bought it.
The next day, I used it for the first time. I got on the flight home, and the young woman sitting next to me turned to me and said, abruptly, “oh my gosh you have such pretty eyes!”
Hmm, I thought. That’s not something I hear every day.
Then I came home and walked into the kitchen and Kellee said, “Wow! What did you do different on your eyes?”
And so, I am left to conclude that Becca Under Eye Brightening Corrector is the real deal.
I brush it on with a small brush (which helps manage the tacky texture) and then blend it with a tiny beauty blender, after primer and before foundation. Unlike concealers, it doesn’t aim to “cover up” your natural skin color. Rather, it just – somehow – boosts and brightens it. This is how Becca puts it: “Backlight technology reflects light to draw attention away from lines and wrinkles, creating a lifting effect,” and I’d say, that is true. Here’s what one reviewer at Sephora said:
So glad a Becca rep was at my local sephora and tried this on me!! It covered/neutralized my dark circles (along with concealer in store) made my eyes refreshed, and more awake looking! I am not a huge under eye concealer kind of girl because i hate the cakey look that I always seem to get no matter what, so I have been putting this on just under my make up forever HD foundation and it works amazing! Love this product!!!
I don’t have dark circles too much anymore, now that I practice regular skincare, but I DO have noticeably crepey, wrinkly skin in that area, with a conspicuous disparity between my under eye area and the rest of my skin. So, I am always looking for something to help that area. But I loathe concealers, because they cake up and look pale and unnatural.
But this Becca Corrector–well, like it claims, it doesn’t settle into wrinkles. And like all Becca products it uses light to achieve magical effects.
It is without question one of the best anti-aging products I’ve ever found.
*My regular intro:
Welcome to #MakeupMonday, my weekly series on makeup; academic and postacademic job market and productivity posts will continue on Tuesday and Friday as usual.
Here is my weekly reminder: I will not engage with makeup-shaming here or on any Facebook or Twitter comment threads. I support your right to not wear makeup, and anyone who dislikes makeup, disapproves of makeup, or wants to argue that no academic woman should be judged on the basis of makeup (which nobody is claiming anyway), I suggest you come back for my other posts on other topics.
For previous posts, see the following:
- Yes This Post Is About Long-Wear Lipcolor
- Welcome to Makeup Monday
- Why Makeup, Why Now?
- Face Makeup, The Basics
- Face Makeup, Getting Fancy
- All About Eyes
- Brows Get Their Own Post, Because Of Course They Do
- More on Lipsticks and Introducing Shae
- Big News on the Lipcolor Front!
- Travel Tips
- Introducing Sailor-J: The Makeup Blogger U Need When Ur Exposing Sexual Harassment in the Academy
- The Makeup Tool I Can’t Do Without
- Christmas Makeup
- Skin Care as Coping Mechanism and Catalyst
- How I Got My Lashes Back
- The Full-Beat Face
- Updates From Karen
- The Most Important Makeup Product-A Guest Post
stock up on sales or ebay or mercari — Becca the brand went out of business