Mustang,
I have a friend who use to work "in those circles" selling and also as a rep for different lines of makeup, powders, moisturizers, etc.. and you wouldn't believe the stories she told. Rep's like the one who said you HAD to use her powder is working on commission, and trust me when I say she wasn't going to recommend anybody else. According to my friend, the dept'mt store reps and makeup artist (use term loosely) are the worst and would do things like change each other's time cards, tell a customer that a rep had quit (when she hadn't) and so on and so forth. Said it was a cut throat biz. My friend went on to school and finished and became a makeup artist (for real) and does makeup for people like Elton John, Miss Alabama, Venessa Williams, and more. She told me to use whatever worked for me. She uses plain old Cover Girl sometimes for different people, and MAC (REALLY EXPENSIVE) makeup for others. Then she has different lines of stuff I've never heard of before.

She says find somebody that you trust. Not these counter girls who have been been to school for six weeks and profess to know all about makeup.

To me that's great advice IF you can find somebody like that AND you can afford to ask their advice. I can't. Also, I DID find somebody like that once, and pretty soon she was gone.

She used loose powder on me and said she wouldn't use anything else. Also, she used sponges to put my makeup on for the photo shoot she gave me for the jacket of my book.

Anyway, I agree with the girls, use what works for you.

JJ