RIP
My heart hurts. If you’ve been reading for a while, do you remember how over-the-moon excited I was when I found Sephora’s serum foundation? If you weren’t around, the excitement was so intense that it was camping.
But, naturally, all good things must come to an end.
Paradise Lost
I was in Sephora and saw a few of the precious, ridiculously-dropped-topped bottles on their neglected clearance end-cap. I panicked, and rummaged through the bottles to find my shade. I’d settle for not-my-shade-but-close. Nothing. Upon returning home, I raced to the website. Clearanced, $11, my shade and everything close-ish is sold out.
My half-hearted, half-assed search for foundation was reawakened with new vigor. My bottle of Teint Infusion is on its last legs.
Foundation Found
I returned to Sephora to be annoyed with the ColorIQ process and lack of lighting again. This time, I got a new employee who was patient and invested in the process. She gave objective input, and encouraged me to take a generous sample home to try.
She sent me home with Urban Decay Naked Skin Foundation in 3.25. Somehow, somewhere, I missed the damn memo that UD came out with quarter-shades. Last time I looked into them they were only offering whole numbers and half-numbers. They were consistently too warm or too cool for me, so even though I liked how it wore, I wrote off their shade range.
She nailed it, finally!
Initial application is a touch light, but it oxidizes into an appropriate shade – and even if it didn’t, it isn’t distractingly light. You have to be really looking to notice, anyway – which I am, but the public isn’t. Plus, strategic placement of other product can help.
Trial and Error
That’s it, folks. There is no Magic 8-Ball for finding foundation. It sucks. 3.25 might match me now, but that doesn’t mean it definitely will in January. Navigating coverage, undertones, oxidation, finish, longevity, and more can be frustrating.
Step back and realize, though, that we’re now luckier than we ever were in getting us in the ballpark, though. How many of you wore a wildly incorrect base shade when you were younger? Like hilariously so, as if you’re rather orange or, on the other end of things, ghostly.
Tons of sites offer matching databases and matrices – I use Temptalia and Findation often, but there are more. We have awesome technology – like ColorIQ! I lovingly knock for not being quite there yet, but it really is an impressive tool that brings technology to the beauty world to help us enjoy the process more and agonize over it less. (For the record, I think more of the issues with ColorIQ result from operator error than anything. Sephora, train your employees on best practices with the dang thing!)
For now, I’m going to try to find joy in the, “foundation found,” side of things.