Foundation

Tarte Amazonian Clay Full Coverage Airbrush Foundation

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Tarte Amazonian Clay Full Coverage Airbrush Foundation, $36

Tarte Amazonian Clay Full Coverage Airbrush Foundation…so refreshing to have a product with an absurdly long name! It’s been a while.

I’ve never been a fan of caking on product to hide problems. Even when I was in the throes of ridiculous skin woes, I wouldn’t do it. That doesn’t mean I’d go bare-faced…but troweling on Instagram-ready, drag-worthy makeup does not seem like a healthy choice for problem skin.

The Purchase

Over the holidays, I finally ran out of the powder foundation I was using on lazy (read: most) mornings where blending a cream or liquid product was out of the question. Armed with a 20% off Ulta Platinum voucher, I picked up Tarte Amazonian Clay Full Coverage Airbrush Foundation. I like the idea of mineral powder foundations; even though bareMinerals didn’t blow me away with its lofty claims, it is a decent product that is user friendly. My hope was that I’d find a better shade match and a similar level of user friendliness in this Tarte product.

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NARS All Day Luminous Weightless Foundation

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This is a legacy post that I’ve given a facelift because who doesn’t want to be warned about shockingly bad foundation? Opinions are the same, but is formatted and edited for easier reading and flow.

I wore Nars Sheer Matte on my wedding day, and while it photographed beautifully, it was heavy. I felt it all evening. NARS All Day Luminous Weightless Foundation came out earlier this year (2015) and, as it often happens, the blogger and vlogger world was abuzz. I saw a lot of positive feedback about the product (go figure).

I didn’t put any stock in it because it seems when a notable brand comes out with something new, everyone is hyped over it. Oh, and unlike its sisters Sheer Glow and Sheer Matte it has a damn pump – so that’s nice. I hadn’t seen amazing results on other people, though, so I ignored it.

NARS All Day Luminous Weightless FoundationNARS All Day Luminous Weightless Foundation

Skeptical Match

Fast forward to June, I had a wedding to attend to and a faux tan thanks to self-tanning…and no foundation that matched. I ventured to Sephora, did the silly ColorIQ thing and spent a lot of time with the ladies there trying to sort out my shade. I told them I prefer MUFE HD and UD, but could do NARS Sheer Matte. Instead, they matched me to NARS All Day Luminous Weightless Foundation because I didn’t have a shade in the others. She assured me that it was fine for oily skin, can be applied with a brush or sponge without issue, photographs well, etc.

Application

I applied the product with a Sigma F80 flat-top kabuki on top of Benefit Porefessional; fairly standard procedure for special event makeup. I noticed that although it did not have the consistency of the Sheer Matte, NARS All Day Luminous Weightless Foundation was on the heavier side. It also required significant effort to blend…and like the Sheer Matte, I had to bust out a beautyblender to help me do so. I set with translucent powder (Rimmel Stay Matte, what I always use) and Urban Decay All-Nighter – again, standard procedure for me for makeup that needs to last.

Wear

The ceremony was outdoors at 5PM (about 15 minutes after I finished painting my face), and brief; the weather was pleasant, not raining or even stiflingly humid. My husband and I headed in for the cocktail hour and he noticed that the foundation was:

  • Breaking up at my jawline
  • Beaking up between my eyes and
  • that it was making a dry patch (that I usually have NO ISSUE with) near my nose awkwardly visible.

I checked it out, and it wasn’t looking good – all the things my husband noticed were definitely the case, and more; it had settled into my smile lines and the lines on my forehead. I tried to blot it, thinking, “Maybe I’m just a bit on the oily side today,” nope – I’m wasn’t, a ton of foundation smeared and lifted when I blotted. I remained blotchy. What the hell?!

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MISSHA Perfect Cover BB Cream

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MISSHA Perfect Cover

MISSHA Perfect Cover BB Cream

I was obsessed with a now-discontinued, American BB (or, you know, a tinted moisturizer being a poser). You may have seen one of my twelve thousand references to it. I’m now out of my backup stash. Although Naked Skin Foundation in 3.25 worked for me in summer, it doesn’t now – and I’ve decided to approach sunless tanning in a more casual fashion anyway. What came to mind was MISSHA Perfect Cover BB Cream – from Korea, it’s legit, and highly rated for a reason. You can get it stateside from Target ($22) or MISSHA’s site (same price usually, on sale at the moment), but I decided to take a chance on saving money and buy mine from Amazon Marketplace seller BeautyBest LLC.

The Packaging

The Box

…is a shiny, metallic gold and brown with normal things you’d expect on a product box. There’s a mix of Korean and English, and certainly enough of the latter for an English-speaking consumer to make sense of. Drug facts and ingredients are listed in English, too. I find it frustrating to buy foreign products and lose that easy reference to see if there are ingredients that disagree with you; I’m glad to have missed that with this. Some of the translated sections are a little shaky, but by no means incoherent (looking at you, Elma & Sana).

On the front, beneath the branding, it reads:

MISSHA M Perfect Cover BB Cream offers a novel skincare concept with BB cream which lightens skin tone by healing visible wrinkles and blemishes with excellent skin-cover ability and prevents skin aging through effective whitening and anti-wrinkle properties.

Ingredients are to the left of the front of the packaging, and can be found for each shade here. Other info, including product shade and directions are to the right of the front. The back is nearly 100% Korean. This guide on spotting fakes from SumWearCo is a good reference as well.

The Tube

…is an airless pump. This is exciting! Airless pumps have a few cool advantages:

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Paradise Lost, Foundation Found

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sephoraserumRIP

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. 

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If I Lost All My Makeup

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Instead of the, “If you were on a deserted island and could only have one item of makeup, what would it be?” question, I’m examining a new one:

If I lost all my makeup in some tragic accident and had to replace it…

…what would I buy?

Inspired by tragic makeup losses everywhere, I sat down to reevaluate my collection. I’m giving myself a $150 budget. I am not including brushes in this, just the products themselves.

loracpro

Lorac PRO, $44 – Versatile, great quality.

Maybelline Gel Liner

Maybelline Eye Studio Lasting Drama Gel Liner, $8 – Inexpensive, performs amazingly well (including when you are irresponsible and forget to remove your makeup before bed).

telescopiccarbon

L’Oreal Telescopic Carbon Black, $7.50 – It’s a great drugstore mascara. It isn’t heavy on the drama, but it is perfect for work and everyday use.

maybellineinstantagerew

Maybelline Instant Age Rewind, $8 – Still my tried-and-true. I use Pro Longwear now, too, but Instant Age Rewind is what I reach for when I’m in a rush and or need to keep it simple…aka most days. I really like how Pro Longwear wears, but I don’t have time for beautyblender concealer buffing every day.

Foundation, $40 – Well, I can’t buy any more Ponds Luminous Finish BB+, so Naked Skin Powder foundation…or I’d try one of the new MUFE options. I listed the price as an average between the two.

luminosoMilani Luminoso, $9 – No highlight needed with this radiant blush.

Urban Decay All Nighter

Urban Decay All Nighter, $32 – Setting spray is one thing I found through learning how to do bridal makeup that I now cannot live without. It’s a splurge, yes, shoot me.

Did I stay within budget?!

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Products I Love But Don’t Always Use

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Just because a product is good, or even great, doesn’t mean I’m always up for exerting the effort to use it. I could easily title this post, “Products I Love But Don’t Routinely Make Time For…Because Sleep.”

Anastasia Dipbrow Pomade

Dipbrow, for instance. Anastasia Dipbrow Pomade is fantastic. I’m still a loyal user, but I don’t use it daily. I simply don’t always have enough time, or bothers to give, to sit there in front of a mirror sculpting my brows with a brush. It is possible to use this product in a hurry, but I’m usually seeking a different look.

sephoraserum

Sephora Teint Infusion Ethereal Natural is so gorgeous. The finish is wonderful. It is not, however, remotely forgiving to the smallest hint of atypical texture – be it dryness or flaky skin. It requires me to pay a little more attention to my skin before use and during application; not a bad thing, I’m just not always up for it.

 

udfbombRed Lipstick (any). I love reds and close-to-red shades; they’re bold and empowering. That said, I usually wear MLBB shades for two reasons – one, they’re flattering and two, they’re effortless. You have to be trying to mess them up, right? But red (like UD F-Bomb or even bold, close-to-red pinks like UD Catfight) requires attentiveness. Depending on your poison, you may or may not need lip liner, but applying without a mirror is out of the question. KvD Foiled Love Lipstick in Adora (now discontinued, but I believe Adora is available in the Studded Kiss formula now) is life, but I can’t slap it on haphazardly running out the door.

 

Products I Love But Don't Always Use

Pigments are delightfully fun! I only own four – three from NYX, and Rushmetal from MAC (from that whole Glambot thing). Anyone who has ever used loose pigments can tell you, however, that there is no such thing as, “really quick,” with them. Application takes more steps, fallout is a thing, cleanup of your workspace will always be a thing. I only really end up using these for special occasions as a result.

Maybelline Gel Liner

 

Gel liner is my favorite, but most days, I’m using dark eyeshadow to define my lashline. I need at least three minutes to apply it, more if I’m doing something, “fun,” like wings or flicks.

I really enjoy all of these things, but in my normal, run-of-the-mill, day-to-day life I can’t pull it all off. I’ll often do one of these things on a weekday, but being as that I wake up at 5:45, I’m desperate for all the sleep I can get!