Make up: Eye dryness doesn’t have to mean no make up!

I still have no answers as to what the underlying cause is for the inflammation in my body, mainly manifesting itself in dry eyes. Unfortunately, it felt like one day to the next, water-based eye drops for the dryness just wasn’t cutting it anymore. I am now using an ointment really meant for overnight wear. It takes some learning to put that stuff in your eye three of four times a day without getting it everywhere. So it really is glasses all the time for me now! I don’t know what the ointment would do to contact lens, but I don’t think it would be pretty.

I use make up as a complete mask so it freaked me out a bit that I might not be able to wear any, but it has been fine, having the ointment just means re-touching make up more often. I’ve been pretty boring and stuck to a thick black winged eyeliner on my upper lids: Bobbi Brown eye gel and brush do the trick well. Every time I reapply ointment, I have to do the liner again of course. If you’re looking for something a bit quicker, especially when on the move, I substitute with Stila’s liquid eyeliner which usually stays put for an hour or two. I have abandoned eyeshadow altogether at this point which makes me sad. I think I will go to Sephora at some point and find out what kind of eyeshadow looks complete glasses.

Eye pencil: The ones that didn’t make the cut were Sephora’s chubby eye pencil liner, they have amazing metalllic (and a few matt) colors and pretty good stay-power normally, but my optician reported to me that my eyeball was looking like a tiny shimmery galaxy, with purple and brown flecks all over my eye. So unfortunately, that eye pencil sheds big time when used with ointment. I then tried Faces Beautiful Gel Eyeliner pen; you still need to blot away as much of the excess ointment as you can from your eye lids and lower eye before applying, but then the pencil does stay on pretty well.

Mascara: After trying several, the one that seems to stay for the longest (two or three hours in my case) is this Lancôme Monsieur Big mascara. Yes, most days there is a stream of black ointment running down my face and it takes a while for me to notice, but hey.

One thing I’ve learned is that it’s a really good idea to have a little eye hydration kit on the go: sterile gloves, ointment, mirror and tissues so that you can re-oil your eyes when out and about. The worst thing is being out and having tired red eyes for hours.