Cream eye base

A cream eye base is colour first and primer second. It is an opaque cream, often sold in a small pot, that sets on the lid to a thin, flexible layer. Worn alone it is a wash of colour that lasts; under powder shadow it does two jobs at once, gripping the powder as a primer does and changing its colour from underneath. A sheer taupe powder over a taupe base reads deeper and more even than the same powder on bare skin; a shimmer over a pale base looks brighter; a matte brown over a brown base looks like more of itself.

That is the line between it and its neighbours. An eyeshadow primer is clear or skin-toned and meant to disappear. A cream eyeshadow is sold as the finished colour, to be worn as it is. A cream eye base is sold for both jobs at once, and its makers describe it that way: as a shadow that works as a base, or a primer that can be worn alone. Because it sets, it makes a firmer footing for powder than a soft cream shadow does, and it is the quickest way to make a pressed shadow look richer than it does in the pan.

Choose the base by the job it has to do. A neutral base a shade or two deeper than your lid — a soft taupe, a beige, a warm brown — gives an everyday wash on its own and grounds any powder laid over it; it is the one to own first. A matching base, from the same colour family as the shadow above it, intensifies the powder and helps it last: a brown base under brown shadow gives a smoky eye that keeps its shape. A contrasting base changes the powder: a pale or white base brightens sheer and pastel shades, and a black one deepens whatever is laid over it.

Finish matters as much as colour. Matte bases sit quietly under any powder; satin and shimmer bases add their own sheen, which is lovely alone and can muddy a matte shadow on top. On deep skin, choose bases with enough pigment to show, since a pale base can turn grey over a deep lid, and look for ranges that run to rich browns, bronzes and plums. On fair skin, a base only slightly deeper than the lid looks the most natural.

Most cream bases set quickly, so work one eye at a time. Warm a little on a fingertip or a small flat synthetic brush and pat it over the lid from the lash line to the crease; tap rather than stroke, so the layer stays thin and even, and soften the upper edge with a clean finger before it sets. Worn alone, it can be left as it is, or pressed with a matching powder to take off the shine and make it last longer. Under shadow, let it set first, then pat the powder on and blend.

A base is also the working surface of the cut crease, in which a sharp line of colour is carved across the lid: the base is laid on below the crease and powder is packed onto it. One maker, P.Louise, sells its coloured bases for exactly that, as well as for priming the lid. Crayon bases, drawn straight on and blended with a finger, are the quickest to use on the move.

A base in a pot is usually applied with a fingertip, which makes clean hands part of the product. The FDA advises washing your hands before applying eye cosmetics, never sharing them, and throwing away any you were using when you had an eye infection.^[1] Close the pot straight after use, since creams dry out when left open, and keep it out of the heat of a car or a sunny windowsill. A brush used for a base should be washed more often than a powder brush, because cream holds on to what it touches.

Long-wearing bases are made to resist water and rubbing, so take them off as you would a waterproof mascara: hold an oil-based remover or micellar water on the closed eye for a few seconds, then wipe gently outward rather than scrubbing the lid.

The cream eye base is a young category, and its history is thin: the firmest dates are the ones its makers gave when they registered its names. The United States trademark for Clinique’s Touch Base for Eyes, registered in 2008, gives the name’s first use as April 1985.^[2] MAC’s Paint Pot is later. Its trademark, filed in 2009 and now held by Estée Lauder Cosmetics, gives the first use as 31 August 2007.^[3] Dates of first use are the owners’ own declarations, not independent records of a launch, and no fuller account of either launch was found.

The two names say what the product was for. One is a base to be touched on; the other is paint in a pot. Both are sold today as cream colours that can stand alone or sit under powder, and that double use is what still separates a base from the clear primers on one side and the cream shadows on the other.