Using the Sandbar Long wear Eyeshadow Primer

I’ll be the first to admit that eyeshadow primers are not an everyday item for me. I only use them on occasion and truthfully if I reach for them it is because the eyeshadow i am using is giving me trouble and I think it might help.

I am in a position where spending more than a regular workday in makeup is a rarity for me. I work from home and while I do put makeup on for video meetings, thankfully the lure of zoom has fade so most of my calls have gone back to the phone. When I do have an in person meeting I dress, go the meeting and then change when I get home. If my makeup fades after that, i am good. Again if i go out it is usually after a day of working at home and so I don’t have to go from an office look to a going out look, I simply get ready to go out.

All of which means that I don’t often need to extend the wear of my makeup. However there are some eyeshadow formulas that simply work better with a base underneath them. It takes out the color of any veins in your eyelids and creates a single color for the shadows to adhere to and pop,

I also have to admit that for me, I will often use concealer a an eyeshadow base if I need one, rather than pick up an independent eyeshadow primer. The reason is shin tone. Typically my concealers are chosen to be slightly lighter than my skin tone. This also helps them blend in. With the Sandbar Long wear Eyeshadow Primer, I was worried that as it was a white formula it would stick out more.

And to be honest it does. Not as much as I feared and not to an unworkable degree, but it does make the lids whiter than the rest of my skin. To combat this I am careful where I apply it and make sure that I only put it where the eyeshadow will cover. which sounds like common sense but I am less careful with my concealer as eyeshadow prime approach.

The Sandbar primer comes with a doe foot. It is angled, which helps but it is also flat which is less help on the eyelid with the round eyeball underneath. Using the applicator to apply it completely gets a bit messy. I found it easier to dab it onto the eyelid and then use a finger to spread it around. It is a somewhat dry formula but it spreads easily enough and dries down fairly quickly. There is a slight tackiness to it at first, but that goes away as it dries down and sets. It is the sort of primer that provides a flat even color base against which the shadow can be placed.

If you have a lot of veins showing in your lids, this is great for you. I found several shadows where application over a bare eyelid produced a patchy result, but over the Sandbar primer were less patchy. I didn’t see it extending the look of any of my shadows, but as I said before I often don’t need my makeup to last too long. I think if you are looking for shadow life extension then you might want to go with a product that has a little more stickiness to it.

The strength of this product is creating a smooth colorless base for the shadows to sit on top of. In this, it excels. It is a good product. I have several shadows that apply slightly patchy without a primer, but better with. Their colors are nice enough that I want to keep them around. For this purpose I would keep this primer around. This is it’s strong suit.

Does it perform this role better than other eyeshadow primers I have tried? No. Does it perform this role better than any concealers I’ve tried? Not really. The Sandbar Longwear Eyeshadow Primer is a good eyeshadow primer but it isn’t a really great eyeshadow primer. I will use it while it is here, but i see no reason to repurchase this over any other product i would use for the purpose of eyeshadow primer.