Nivea Shave Balm As A Primer:

themakeupcoven:

aka the shit I put on my face to look gr8

I was at my mom’s house for a minor dental thing because my mom is a hygienist and I get the hookup at her office. While I was there I noticed the Nivea Shave Post Shave Balm on my brother’s bathroom counter and thought:

Finally! I can slather that shit on my face and see if it works as a primer! There’s a lot of non-makeup shit that I’ve seen used on the internet as a primer–aftershave and Monistat being the more popular ones that come to mind–but I had also seen people put lemon juice on their face on the Internet, so it’s not like everybody on the internet is right and great all the time.

I was a little hesitant to do it for a few reasons 1) I didn’t want to buy it because I’d rather buy lipsticks 2) I didn’t want to smell like aftershave/grandpa/dirty grandpa/fratboi 3) I have a shady relationship with primers—I’m allergic to a lot of the ones with silicone, and find that the ones without it don’t do much to prep my face for makeup. But, alas, as I was about to get a dentist’s fingers shoved in my mouth, I realized there was no dignity in my day anyway and decided to go for it. What could be lost but a few hundred teeth?

Results:

7/10

I much prefer Smashbox Primer Water–I feel like it moisturizes better in this shitty weather, but this one was still pretty good. It smells like AXE mixed with a little bit of that drugstore moisturizer smell, but alas, you won’t smell like that dude on my freshman floor who had all of Entourage on DVD for too long. The scent fades. It feels cooling to apply, and dries to that classic tacky primer texture we all know and love. I found that my makeup application wasn’t too noticeably different—but it did keep my makeup creaseless for a few more hours than normal. While my acne discoloration (I had a few spots, so eat me) usually peeks up around hour 5, I’d say it didn’t till hour 6 or 7. I used Makeup Forever HD Foundation, which looks great in pictures but tends to oxidize/fade on me fairly quickly.

I’d recommend this shit if you don’t want to drop a lot for primer but work long hours and want to keep your makeup fresh. It won’t make your pores smaller or anything, but I’d say it’s a nice way to keep the makeup on for a bit longer than usual.

Also a couple points for it being a “men’s” marketed product without like, a very obnoxious name or a reference to steel or mountains or some other crap.