I’m sitting on the Amtrak, hurtling between Washington, D.C., and New York City; the post-industrial mid-East coast rushes past my fogged-up window. I’m on my way to a red-carpet awards ceremony. It’s all very glamorous.
I should be wistfully taking in the scenery, but that’s not what I’m doing. Instead, I’m frantically watching a video of a woman who appears to be in her early 20s teaching me how to apply makeup. Not a specific type of makeup, mind you. Makeup in general. The video is, quite literally, titled “Makeup for Beginners 2024.”
On the one hand, as someone who works in digital storytelling, I have to give props to a headline that’s been perfectly optimized to spit out results that are in total alignment with Google searches like mine. On the other hand, the title of the video was a blatant reminder that I have limited skill when it comes to applying makeup—pretty much close to zero, actually.
As the YouTube video politely put it: Beginner.
It’s not that I reject makeup entirely. It’s mostly that I’ve never learned how to wield its power and complexity with anything resembling advanced proficiency.
I am a simple gal with simple goals: a fresh-looking complexion, less-intense bags under my eyes (I’m Southern European stock; the deeply set, dark-in-hue bags, or “allergy shiners,” as a doctor once called them, are significant; they aren’t the kind of undereye circles that appear just because you haven’t gotten enough sleep; these suckers have hung around for my entire life, childhood included), and dark, sturdy-appearing eyebrows.
The night of my train journey, however, I wanted glam. This was a red-carpet event with full-on paparazzi. Sometimes, it’s fun to go all out on your appearance, and this was one of those moments for me.
To make a long story short, the YouTube video I found was perfect. It gave me just enough information to feel adept but not so much detail that I choked. At the event, I looked like a face among many other like-styled visages adorned with concealer, foundation, blush, mascara, eye shadow, contour stick, eyeliner, and lipstick. Whew. I did it.
The thing is, I don’t really want to do it like that very often.
I want a couple of trusted products that I can use, whether it’s for work, a hike, or a family camping weekend. I want them to make intuitive sense to me.
I want to subtly enhance my features without looking like I’m wearing a full face of makeup. (More power to folks who wake up every day and do a full face. I love the creativity that so many people bring to makeup. That’s just not me.)
I also want products made with clean ingredients that have not been tested on animals.
Enter the Ilia Multi-Stick.
Where Did I Learn About Ilia’s Multi-Stick?
I learned about this product in the same place where I discover every cool new thing I buy—from a targeted ad on Instagram.
At first, Ilia Beauty, a makeup and skincare brand known for its clean-ingredient products, started showing up as ads between Instagram stories, and then I saw it in my curated feed.
This might seem weird, but I genuinely liked the marketing. The ads featured models of all ages (some with gray hair), wrinkles, and diverse skin tones. Very close to real-looking women. This all appealed to me very much. I thought they looked like themselves with a little polish; how pretty.
It got serious for me when a coworker whose skin I admired shared that Ilia’s Multi-Stick was one of her secrets. I had been seeing the ads in my feeds for a while, but it took a good, old-fashioned word-of-mouth recommendation to make me feel like the investment was worth making.
My coworker’s skin had an easy luminescence. It always looked clean, fresh, and—dare I say—makeup-less. Like she’d just come in from a misty walk along some beautiful coastline. Was it just enough sweat to look dewy? Was it some kind of moisturizer that outlasts anything I’ve ever known? Is it genes? And she was older than me, so it wasn’t a glow I could just chalk up to youth.
This coworker was also someone with whom I would talk a lot about the appearance pressures that come with aging, so I knew that her approach to skincare was sanguine and health-focused, as opposed to relying on more invasive measures.
I wanted her glow, and I wanted the ease that came with it, so I got my own Multi-Stick to add to my daily regimen of under-eye concealer and brow wax.
What Makes the Ilia Multi-Stick So Special?
Honestly, without hyperbole, it can do almost everything someone like me is looking for it to be able to do.
I use it as blush, eye shadow, and lipstick. It comes in so many shades, and I’ve found my go-to color—Mauve Rose (Ilia’s nickname for this shade is “At Last”).
It somehow adds a natural-looking hue and hydration to my skin. It’s a single little tube I can travel with, not too much bigger than your typical chapstick.
Although I use mine every single day, I think it’s going to last for an entire year. I honestly feel like I don’t hold back when I’m applying the stick, but a little can go a long way, depending on how much color I want to add.
Priced at $36, the Multi-Stick is an investment, but when you’re able to use it for so many functions—and when it can still last as long as it does—the money seems worth it.
I like to apply it and then use my fingers to blend it to what I think looks like a “natural state.”
Years ago, I watched a video of a French fashion icon talking about her daily routines, and she espoused her belief in treating your face like an art palette, which, in her very French terms, meant blending with your fingers instead of brushes. I like the tactility of that. Plus, it makes me feel French-girl-effortless. Brushes? Who needs them? Those things are awfully fussy when I have these great fingers here (or so the lines of reasoning go in my head).
Can the Multi-Stick Handle Adventure?
I took my Ilia stick on a weekend camping trip with my husband, toddler, and two dogs. Please try to imagine the amount of “use” my face gets—from dogs licking it with all the ardor in their happy hearts to my toddler smearing toasted marshmallows on it while cuddling up by the campfire. I’m not saying I never had to reapply. The Multi-Stick is not a form of superglue.
But it made me feel like I had a slight dewiness and a healthy-but-natural amount of color during all of the activities we had planned. In fact, I wear it on most of my adventures. It never breaks me out, even though I sweat while wearing it all the time.
The Ilia Multi-Stick has become a holy-grail makeup product for a gal who was never in search of such a thing. If you’re interested, I recommend exploring all the different color options to see which would best complement your skin tone.