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Budget Beauty Junkie

This month, I wanted to try something different here with "Budget Beauty Junkie." After six months of scouring the marketplace to bring Richmond.com readers the best in beauty, I wanted to put my experience to the test. Could I, with all my beauty-junkie tendencies, shop for a real person and pass on just a little bit of my passion without scaring them away from makeup counters forever?

For every girl like me, who's obsessed with the latest and greatest product, there are hundreds of you who are content to wear the same mascara, blush and pressed powder for a decade or more. If you've ever scraped lipstick from a tube, stored your foundation bottle upside-down to get the last few drops, or seen the silvery glint of the pan in your eyeshadows, I'm talking to you.

I'm not saying there's a thing wrong with having a routine and sticking to it. Even after trying a dozen shades of bronzer, I'm likely to go back to using the same shade and formula because it suits my skintone and skin type. However, if you're busy raising kids, putting yourself through school or otherwise living a normal, busy life, trying new cosmetic products or formulas is hardly a priority.

Even drugstore makeup has gotten more expensive lately, and there's no end to the confusing, misleading or patently harmful information being spread by beauty industry advertising and department store sales clerks. Breaking out of a makeup comfort zone isn't easy, but it can be rewarding. These rewards include healthier skin, fashion-forward shades and a streamlined routine. Justine is a twenty-something grad student with two internships. I asked her to be my guinea pig, so she packed up her makeup and skincare routine and brought it over for an inspection. Based on her thoughts and my observations, we wrote up a short shopping list. This helped us stay focused, apart from a short detour to check out a bit of the Northside on our way to the Walgreens at Chamberlayne Avenue and Brookland Park Boulevard. The alternative, in which I go shopping with eyes closed and wallet open, usually results in a purse full of receipts for coral nail polish and pinkish-red lipgloss, and nothing useful.

But before Justine came over, I did some homework. I read the week's drugstore makeup circulars to find out what brands would be on sale, and wrote down the names of interesting new products. I did my real research at Makeup Alley (http://www/makeupalley.com), which has thousands of product reviews for every sort of beauty product available, from dollar store shampoo to eye cream that costs hundreds of dollars an ounce. Almost as soon as a new beauty product is released, Makeup Alley members review it and report if they'd buy it again.

Justine prefers a natural look, generally wearing cream foundation and pressed powder, but rarely color cosmetics like eyeshadows or lipstick. For a night out, she might add black pencil eyeliner, cream bronzer and a shimmery rose lipgloss. She claims to be clueless about makeup, but is savvy enough to use a green concealer to neutralize redness and she knows that an eyelash curler can add extra oomph to lashes. Some of her issues included mascara frustration and broken, crumbling compacts of concealer and eyeshadow. Justine loves the beach and a summery glow, but she knows the importance of wearing SPF to prevent skin cancer and premature aging of the skin (including wrinkles and age spots).

Her kit is minimalist and manageable, yet with a little bit of shopping, we were able to find some great products that she can wear to work, on the weekend and out on the town.

First off, she pulled out a pink and green tube of mascara – the ubiquitous Maybelline Great Lash . Like most of you, she sees the endless raves by beauty editors and makeup artists in fashion magazines. However, the product just wasn't living up to her expectations. It went on clumpy and often left her with 'raccoon' eyes. In truth, Great Lash has been eclipsed lately by newer formulations and patented brush designs. Even Maybelline makes better mascaras than Great Lash these days. I'm a devoted fan of Full and Soft , for instance, and for Justine I chose Define a Lash . It's even in a green tube for a hint of familiarity!

If you're not happy with your mascara, there's really no reason to stick with it. We're supposed to throw them out every three months, anyway – right?

The lone blush in Justine's kit was a Cover Girl Cheekers powder blush in Peaches & Cream. This color sounds perfect for Justine's peaches and cream complexion, but it's a very sheer, light pink and barely shows on her skin. To get glowing skin without the sun damage, Justine switched out her blush for a Wet and Wild Bronzer ($2.99) , and to amp up the glow even more, a Lumene mini kabuki brush. Justine reports that they easily became a part of her makeup routine. She loves the kabuki brush so much, in fact, that she wants to try even more bronzers to use with it!

As we chatted, I learned more about Justine's routine. She moisturizes every day but found that even well-moisturized skin can have flakes. I introduced her to a one-two skincare punch: a facial scrub and an alpha-hydroxy acid treatment lotion. Both from Neutrogena , the Anti-Wrinkle/Anti-Blemish scrub and Healthy Skin Face Lotion SPF 15 are the backbone of a simple skincare regimen that will promote smooth and even toned skin while also protecting it from the sun. Justine liked the texture of this scrub because the grains weren't harsh and it made her skin feel very smooth.

Justine is content with her foundation and pressed powder, but her concealer from Physician's Formula has been discontinued. Because she was running low, I suggested she try the new Instant Age Rewind Double Face Perfector from Maybelline. It seemed a bit spendy at $8.49, but with a Maybelline buy-one, get-one 50 percent off sale, we saved $4.

Also in its favor is that it contains two products – one end is a concealer and the other is a highlighter. Justine really liked the concealer, which has a very creamy consistency, a soft doe-foot applicator and blends in really well. I showed her how highlighter can be used to open up the eyes. Just a dot in the inner corner, blended well, erases dark shadows and will give the appearance of a good night's sleep. The highlighter end, however, was a disappointment to Justine. It has a very runny formula and she felt it didn't really have any effect, or perhaps even made the shadows under her eyes worse!

After Justine pulled out a cracked and crumbling quad of pinkish Maybelline eyeshadows, she expressed interest in trying some greys instead, which I agreed would suit her skintone and be perfect for autumn. I have been disappointed by Rimmel eyeshadows before, but they have recently been reformulated. At only $5.99 for the four shadows in the Smoky Noir quad, this was a fun splurge that turned out to be a good buy. The shadows are indeed much silkier and pigmented than the last time I tried them and I was happy to hear that they lasted all day.

Justine also wears black pencil eyeliner almost everyday but I prompted her to try gel eyeliners, which I admit can be a little intimidating at first. The best way to get a precise, thin line is not a thin pointy eyeliner brush, but rather a stiff, angled brush. Justine got the hang of it immediately and we found an Essence of Beauty angled liner brush (with a lash comb and brow brush on the opposite end) for only $3.99 at CVS. Justine can also use this brush wet or dry with the dark shades in the quad of grey eyeshadows. She loved the look of the gel liner so much that she's planning to go shopping again soon and buy one of her very own!

When I checked in with her after she'd had some time to use all the products, Justine said she was glad I subjected her to my little shopping experiment. If left to her own devices, she said she probably wouldn't have done it on her own, and if she had, she might have spent too much or bought the wrong thing due to a high-pressure sales pitch from a department store makeup artist.

We've all been there, but now you're equipped to handle it – read the ads, make a list, do your research online and avoid the department stores in favor of self-service drugstores or specialty stores like Ulta or Sephora.

Also, have some specific questions ready for any would-be salesperson. If they can't do a competent job answering your question without convincing you to buy another bottle of Dramatically Different Moisturizing Lotion , keep on walking.

We purchased nine products for under $50 and only spent an hour shopping, which was split between four stores. You can have the same success. So grab your makeup bag, the newspaper and a pen and paper – and get to work!