You Are An Obsession, You're My Obsession...

I apparently have an inability to move beyond my past loves.

Case in point? Corey Haim and Garish Eyeshadow.

Lately, I've been consumed by all of the "enhance your eye color" eyeshadow sets that are out in stores right now. I am inexplicably drawn to them in the store, and I spend an inordinate amount of time looking at them. It's sad.

But here's what's really sad: I was obsessed with them the first time they were a trend. When I was 12. They were a big deal back in the mid-to-late 80s, which also happened to be right around the time my mom first started letting me wear makeup. And, my eyes happened to be the only thing I liked about myself at the time, so I got fixated on "playing them up," or whatever, in order to attract the attention of whatever boy I had a crush on at the time (it didn't work, BTW). I also highly suspect that my "highlighted" eye color worked its way into my pre-teen fantasies about meeting Corey Haim and making him my boyfriend I don't remember for sure, but there may have been something about The Haimster telling me I had the most beautiful eyes he'd ever seen. Yeah, I was THAT girl.

AANNNYWAY... back in the 1980s, Maybelline had cornered the market on the eye color enhancement shadows (and the amazing colored mascara market as well), and their sets mostly consisted of bright purples and/or deep plums. There wasn't a whole lot of choice, especially when I was buying all of my makeup with my $10 a week allowance. So I went with it. There are a lot of pictures of middle-school me in some really garish eyeshadow. It's a shame, really.

Now that making your eye color is a recurring trend, there appear to be a lot more choices available. Probably because there are a lot more cosmetic companies out there, and also probably because I'm no longer living in a little-bitty town, and the little-bitty cosmetic department in its little-bitty Wal-Mart is no longer my only option for purchasing cosmetics. I've moved on to the slightly-larger cosmetic department in the slightly-larger Wal-Mart in my slightly-larger adopted hometown. My allowance is also a little larger these days. Not much, but a little.

Yes, yes. I know. The point, the point. It's coming, I promise. I'm a storyteller. Get used to it.

I may have reverted back to my old ways, and purchased some of these eyeshadow sets. I've been feeling a little old and looking kind of wrinkly lately, and once again my eyes are about the only thing I like about my face (right now, anyway). So I decided to shift the focus away from everything but my eyes. Supposedly, these shadows should do the trick.

In my quest for stunning eyes, I've found a few favorites that I wanted to share with everyone, in case any of you used to fantasize about Mr. Haim telling you that YOU had the most beautiful eyes he'd ever seen.

Almay has great neutral colors, and they offer two color palates per eye color. I have green eyes, so I got to choose between the smoky plums and the goldish greens. I have olive undertones, so I avoided the greens and went with the plums. They're quite lovely, and are wonderful for workday wear. I chose to pair them with a plum eyeliner pencil from the Almay Intense i-Color Collection. (I think they're trying to be trendy with the whole i-Color thing. Maybe they think we'll confuse it with an i-Phone, which annoyed me a little, but I bought the sh!t anyway) and some sweet-a$$ "Black Ruby" mascara from CoverGirl's Exact Eyelights Eye Brightening line.

As great as the Almay stuff is, I've found that I actually prefer Physicians Formula's Shimmer Strips line. For about $10, you get a trio of trios (that's nine eyeshadows, for those of you that are math-challenged), and you can choose from Smoky, Pop, Bronze, or regular old Eye-Enhancing. The shadows are wet-dry formulas, so you can be as normal or as crazy as you choose. They also have a color-enhancing mascara to match each collection.

If you're wondering which collection I chose, I chose CRAZY -- aka "Pop," even though I hate that stupid word -- for the part of my 12-year-old self that still resides somewhere inside my 34-year-old brain, and also for my homeslice, Corey, both of whom will be memorialized each time I apply that garish pink, purple, and turquoise shadow to my eyelids.

So, in closing, here's to never quite letting go of your 12-year-old self, and here's to the Haimster for shaping my taste in makeup without ever him ever even knowing that he did!