Ten years of foundation

Welcome to my walk down foundation memory lane. Brace yourself, it’s a long one. I am not a doctor or scientist and therefore my opinions and conclusions are based on MY personal experiences. I don’t believe there is a one size fits all solution when it comes to skin, even when you narrow things down to age, complexion, skin type etc, I think there are still too many variables that shape everyone’s unique experience with any given product.  So, even if we seemingly share some or even all the same concerns and qualities, just because I had a bad experience, doesn't mean you will, or just because I had a good one, doesn't mean you would. Some of the products I’ve used have left a deeper impression than others and for obvious reasons I cannot help but take a more severe tone depicting them. If you choose to take my experience into consideration when making your own decision, feel free to. Likewise, if you’ve used some of the products I will mention and experienced them differently, it’s perfectly understandable. We’re all made up of unique chemistry, makeup and foundation is too, and the reaction we have can be a neutral one, spectacular or disastrous. It’s all about trial and error =).

You know how when asked what the one item of makeup you’d keep is if you could only have one, or what’s the one item you simply wouldn’t walk out the door without, the typical answer is always mascara? Well I disagree. If I could only have a single item of makeup, it would be foundation. If, for good behavior, I were allowed another item, it would be powder, and if whoever enforced such cruelty was in a forgiving mood and allowed a third, fourth and fifth, they would be an eyebrow pencil, THEN mascara and, finally, a shimmery nude single eyeshadow. In a nutshell, that there is my everyday look and all I need to achieve it (plus lip-balm or a light lipstick, but not at the moment, since my lips are too chapped and dry to wear color). Pretty simple and unexciting, huh?

I think most women wouldn’t want to admit how little of what they own actually gets used, whether it’s makeup or clothing (a closet full of clothes and nothing to wear? Pretty much. I think I have about four outfits that morph into one another in the space of two weeks or so, depending on the rate at which the jeans or tops need a wash, switching up my statement jewelry when I’m dead bored and yearning desperately for change) or anything else. Obviously I have more items of makeup than that, there are special occasion looks I like to do and there’re some options for variety in that daily look as well, but lately I’ve been yearning for a simpler time, when I was 15-17 years old (or something, who can remember) and my entire, little makeup bag consisted of foundation, one eyeshadow, mascara, lip gloss and a pencil eyeliner. I only had one of everything and only got a new something when the old something was up. Oh, bliss.

I think the reason that simplicity is so appealing to me now is that the one item of makeup that’s most important to me, foundation, has so far been impossible to find. Perhaps if I could easily find a match in just about any brand, high end or drugstore, and have it look beautiful, I’d have more energy to get into things like contouring, bronzers, highlighters, blush, all kinds of primers and so on (the list can be endless if one so chooses). But I also think I’d be more than happy if someone said, here, this is the perfect foundation for you, you can have it, but only if you commit to using only those five essential products mentioned above for the rest of your life. I’d do it. Likewise, if someone said, here, I’ll give you fairy-tale perfect skin, so you needn’t ever use foundation, concealer or powder; full, classically shaped eyebrows so you needn’t draw them on; and darker hair, meaning darker lashes, which by the way, would be beautifully thick and naturally curly like Elizabeth Taylor’s – all this on the condition of never wearing makeup again. I’m fairly certain I’d agree to this after a minute or so of careful consideration (while I lament never having another gorgeous shade of Rouge Volupté on my lips). Makeup is, after all, a means of creating an illusion of what we want but don’t have, concealing what we wish we didn’t and enhancing that which we do. As fun as it can be, I’m sure many would gladly give it up if with a wave of a magic wand they could achieve the look of natural perfection. Or, rather, what said perfection is to them.

Not that I’d found any better products back in those simple days, but I certainly wasn’t fanatic in my search the way I am now (somehow walking around with an orange, shiny face wasn’t at the top of my list of problems, not that it is now either, but I’m sure just about anyone would concur, as teenagers, there are worse things going on than that). And not that I am any more or less insecure about my appearance now than I was then (which is… sad, but that’s another subject entirely) or I care more about what other people think, no. I just care more, period. I care more about myself and I want to take pleasure in my daily rituals, whether it’s a cup of coffee or the brush I apply powder with (by the way, I only started using powder because I managed to find a shade that was slightly lighter than the lightest available foundations and pigmented enough to make a small but visible difference, so even though at the time I didn’t know it was possible to lighten foundations and had accepted a fate of never having my face match my neck ever, I was still trying to do something about it. Little did I know I’d just been lucky in my foundation choices to not technically need powder, which I now know I do due to having combination oily skin, usually).

I don’t have a car, but if I did, it would have to be a looker and a joy to handle. Simply being a means of getting from point A to B isn’t good enough, that’s what busses and taxis are for. I wish I could say I dine as much for pleasure, both visual and gastronomical, as I do for nutrition, but in my case, that’s very difficult to keep up. I’m trying though! If I can avoid wearing a polyester fabric, I will. Unless it’s used to protect me from the elements (either extreme heat or cold or humidity) or a certain item simply cannot be made out of a natural fiber (like accordion pleats, the nature of natural fibers is such that you can treat it with heat, which is how the pleats are created, but it will revert to its original condition (which is why linen, cotton, silk and wool become easily creased and wrinkled no matter how thoroughly you iron them), sometimes within the first few wears, but certainly after the garment is washed/cleaned. Polyester will basically bend into that shape, the heat will lock it in and it’ll stay that way, because what it is essentially is a very thin thread of plastic, and I refuse to wear plastic on my skin unless I absolutely have to).

The point is, I’ve only got one life and I want to live it and take pleasure in as many things, both little, habitual everyday things, and big adventures, as I can. I want and need to be pampered and it’s about bloody time. Living without pleasure might as well be called dying, it’s in essence what we begin to do the moment we take our first breath, and finish when we draw our last. I don’t want to look back and realize all I did was worry about money, about not being good enough, thin enough and about what other people thought. We’re all, sadly, very much preoccupied with our own demons, too deeply to notice the ones of the people around us, so I know, chances are if I’m beating myself up about having to wear an orange foundation which emphasizes dry patches, magnifies pores and does nothing to hide my scars, the guy standing next to me waiting for the light to change to cross the street, couldn’t care less. He’s worried about his mortgage and his cheating wife and what’s wrong with him, down to microscopic possibilities like not fixing a squeaking door or leaving buttery knives laying around on the kitchen counter, who knows, that would cause her to be unfaithful. Really, if something about yourself is bothering you, it’s very, very possible it’s bothering only you. That doesn’t mean it’s any less important! It’s actually more important I think. I’m so envious of people who are mostly or even completely (is that possible??) happy with themselves, in every respect. Me making myself happy is a far greater challenge than someone else succeeding at it, but I also happen to be my worst critic, which is not the case with everybody. If there is something that’s bothering me, you could spend hours trying your best, and you might as well be lavishing a concrete wall with compliments and adoration – I ain’t buying it. However, if all is well in the kingdom of my mind and I am pleased with my reflection, I don’t need to be told I look hot when I know I do ;) (which doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to hear it just the same). So it’s all a matter of timing, really =).

The part of my appearance that’s causing me the most heartache is my skin. I am on a treatment course to make it better from the inside out, but the issue of then dealing with it cosmetically is still up in the air. Naturally, I have combination skin – the center of my face tends to get very oily, especially the area from the tip of my nose, upper lip and down to my chin, while the skin below my cheek bones and along the jawline tends to be dehydrated. However, while taking Accutane to cease oil production and thus stop breakouts, I’m in a unique position to experience products as someone with both dry AND oily skin. Add to that my general need of finding an extremely pale yellow shade of foundation, and I make quite the test subject! My current lineup of foundations consists of some that work for one type of skin and completely do not for another. None of them really work for me I’m afraid, but they are certainly a learning experience. An expensive one! Remember how I said I used to only have one foundation? In fact, this was the case not too long ago, just over a year or so. Fast forward 14 months and I have seven! Seven! None of which work! Ay! Pictured are the seven that I currently have, most of which have maybe a few uses hiding in them and that I’ve kept around primarily for show and tell. I’ll mention a few more I’ve used up recently but haven’t kept the bottle of or that I tried samples of and based on those decided to either pass or plan on purchasing later.

And, in chronological order, here we go!

Chanel Prolumière in 10 Limpide-Nude. Why did they discontinue this, why?? WHY?! I believe this was the second high end foundation I used and I used it for a long, long time – probably repurchased it 4-6 times. The first foundation I ever got was something by Bourjois. I don’t think they make it anymore, or if they do, they’ve changed the packaging, either way, I can’t remember what it was called and none of the bottles at the counter look like what I used to have. If memory doesn’t fail me, the first high end foundation I ever had was Photogenic Lumessance  by Lancôme in 02 Lys Rosé. I remember it having a funny (good funny, pleasant!) texture. It wasn’t runny, it was sort of whipped and nice. The issue I had with this was the colour – it was too pink and dark and the degree of this worsened throughout the day as it oxidized. Also, and this applies to all Lancôme complexion related products, I couldn’t wear it anywhere near my eyes – something in it made my eyes itch and water terribly. I used it up of course.

Next stop, Chanel. In retrospect, this was a glorious foundation for me. Top three of all-time favourites (two of these three are now discontinued, so… Lucky me!). I didn’t need to use powder over it (I did though, to make the colour match slightly better as mentioned before), it had a cool yellow, almost grey tone (yes weird, but it worked for me!), the coverage was nice, LOVED the packaging, it lasted a long time and… I don’t know, all around, it was quite fabulous! I think the only problems I had with it, on occasion, was the finish. Because of my combination skin, it used to look a bit (too) dewy and heavy on the center of my face and it occasionally would emphasize dehydration. However, I was what, 16-17 when I started using it? Not exactly experienced in the art of makeup application now was I? If this were still available today, I think I could apply my knowledge and skill to make the foundation work very well for me – I’d find a brush it liked, a primer, a tone adjuster it could be friendly with and so on. All in all, extremely disappointed Chanel discontinued this. And the replacement foundation, Perfection Lumière? Doesn’t even come close. The B10 shade is a pretty decent base for me to work off with a bit of lightening, however, the texture and finish of that foundation is not good on me. Not on combination or dry skin me. It settles in pores over oilier parts of the skin and looks like dotty rubber and is absolutely disastrous on any part of the skin that has even the slightest hint of dryness. I currently have dry skin, it can feel dry, but it doesn’t really look dry, with or without makeup, however, that foundation will make it look flaky, I don’t know how, but it manages to do it. Also, the coverage is much more sheer than that of Prolumière. Honestly I’m not entirely sure who this foundation would work for. Possibly someone in the middle, so someone with normal skin who is looking for light medium coverage. That would be my guess.

There’s nothing much I like about Perfection Lumière. The shade range, in theory, is nice. I have an issue with this though. All of a sudden, high end brands realized the trend for a wide variety of shades including ones in many undertones, but, they unanimously chose to launch these in formulations that are so sheer, it really doesn’t matter. The level of transparency is so high your own skin colour will change and affect the shade you're wearing to a degree where you could easily get away with wearing 4 different shades and they’d all look rather similar. What exactly is the point of that? I… just… Oh never mind. Anyway, shade range – good effort, lightest one still not light enough for me, but I would buy it if the finish didn’t look so horrible. Packaging is lovely as ever, it is Chanel, but not a good enough reason to buy the product for the bottle alone. I think.

Chanel Prolumière, 10 Limpide-Nude

I wore Prolumière for… Years. I can’t recall exactly when I started, but I remember quite precisely when I chose my next foundation. This was in the last few months of 2009, October-December, something like that. The reason I remember this is... Ok, there’s a story behind this. We were doing a photo shoot at an ice rink for my friend Elena Glebova and the dress I’d designed for her for the Vancouver Olympics. This was our first shoot together and also my first shoot with Karin, who at the time was a makeup artist for Givenchy. The only time we could get the rink to ourselves was before it opened, so around 8 A.M., and our time was very limited. Basically, we couldn’t come before the cleaners started their day and we couldn’t stay after the place opened. We had maybe 50 minutes for the shoot but started with hair and makeup at the Academy of Arts at 6:30 A.M. (roughly). It’s slightly better regulated now, but back then, as art students, we could come and go at any hours of the night (ANY!) and take out keys for whatever rooms we had permission to use. Since I knew our nutty cleaner (she had a violent manner of doing things, furniture would fly around as she cleared her path with an authoritative grunt) started with the main room, I decided to occupy the sewing room while we prepared. The photographer ended up being over an hour late with the lighting equipment, but because I am a scheduling mastermind (and I’d worked with her before, wink) I predicted the delay and scheduled accordingly so in the end we were exactly on time. There were a couple of more adventurous delays but that’s not the point of this story. The point is, that’s how I met Karin, and she told me to look at Yves Saint Laurent foundations. I haven’t the faintest recollection as to why that conversation happened, but it did. It was something “foundation, something-something, feels like silk, something-something, YSL, bla-bla-bla… Everybody get in the car, we have to gooo!”.

For some reason the word “silk” stuck with me, even though as it later turned out, she must have used it in some other context because she’d never owned or used the foundation I fell in love with after visiting the YSL counter. I on the other hand was sure this was the one she meant for me to check out. Teint Eclat de Soie, shade 5. Hands down, no competition, my favourite foundation I’ve ever used or tried. The shade was its only fault, it was too peachy and dark, but my goodness, the rest of it was superb! It came out as a creamy liquid that was so workable, buttery and light and once you were done with the application, it dried completely into this luxurious, silky veil. I’ve not experienced any other foundation that behaves quite like that. It was lightly perfumed, came in a heavy frosted glass bottle, had a pump, had medium high coverage and was IDEAL for combination/oily skin – just utter perfection.

Notice how I’ve been using the past tense? Wonder why? Because some genius at YSL decided to DISCONTINUE my beloved! I didn’t know companies could even do that! I’d just found my dream formulation and only got to repurchase it once and it was gone, GONE! I didn’t understand what had happened, I thought it was just gone from my region (that does happen frequently), it was still somewhat available or at least listed in YSL’s lineup of foundations on international sites, but within a month or two, it disappeared altogether. Had I known, I would have prepared, I would have bought a few years’ worth supply of whatever ones were still out there (well, that sounds desperate seeing as those things expire, but come on! It was SO good!), but no, I was completely blind sighted and foundationless. Heartbroken my storybook relationship had come to such an abrupt end, I thought, alright, I’ll just go back to Prolumière, right? Not a chance, because some genius at Chanel (I bet they went to the same business school as the above mentioned YSL genius) decided to discontinue Prolumiére at the same time. Oh, my, god. Foundationless, I was completely foundationless – back to square one, no, zero!

Yves Saint Luarent Teint Eclat de Soie, 5

At the time the only aspect of foundation I was concerned about was the colour. Somehow I’d lucked out with all of my choices up to that point (early winter of 2011) and I really thought that was all there was to foundation. That and the level of coverage. I was so desperate, everything was too dark, just comically even, my backup plan had fallen through and there was no plan “C”. Finally I found something that was acceptable. It was no Eclat de Soie, but it was something. It was also the first foundation that wasn’t actually suitable for my skin. Kanebo Sensai Fluid Finish Lasting Velvet in 102 Soft Ivory. This foundation didn’t have the magical finish on the skin like the YSL. The finish was just alright I’d say, in the beginning. It came in a nice glass bottle with a pump, it didn’t feel cheap, but it was somewhat of a more practical than luxurious design. Despite its sort of plain look, I liked its yellow tone and loved the fact that I could cover my entire face with a single pump of the product (there’s a reason for that). Usually I would need three or more pumps of product – one for each side of the face and one for additional coverage in specific areas. This sort of glided on and on and I had trouble finding any more space to utilize the product. Mind you, the coverage wasn’t really buildable  (on me). Once it was on, it was on, and trying to layer on anything more past a certain point was impossible, so at best I could achieve a medium level of sheerness. Why? Well…

Sensai make two liquid foundations, the difference in name is just that last part, “lasting velvet”. However, they are very similar, very. The words “moisturizing” and “daylong hydration” get thrown around in either ones official description on sensai-cosmetics.com . I could not for the life of me figure out why all of a sudden my face was shiny like a mirror, it never had been before, I wasn’t working out or anything and it was winter in Northern Europe, so what was going on? I think I hit pan on a brand new powder compact in under two weeks. WTF?! I was beyond confused and it took me a while to figure out it was the foundation that was causing such a change in my complexion. I continued to use it because there was honestly nothing else and I kept hoping my YSL would be back in stock soon (part of me is still hoping for it). Coincidentally (or not so much) my skin began to worsen, drastically, during the time I wore this foundation. I’m not crediting mild/bad acne going to cystic/horrendous to the use of the Kanebo foundation alone, no. There was a problem to begin with, but because of its high moisture properties, I think it kicked the oil production in my skin into high gear, I had an abundance of oil to begin with (hello, combination skin!) but now it was out of control, there was nowhere for it to go other than to create more and more painful acne and more and more bacteria to live around it. Awful, just awful. The reason I needed so little of the product and why it wasn’t buildable on me, was because the oil on my skin would dilute it, the more I applied it, the more its composition would promote the production of oil, and there you have it, a vicious cycle. Obviously, the worse my skin got, the more I tried to build up coverage.

The amount of powder I went through is frightening… And embarrassing. I’d never heard about primers back then, then I did through youtube, went out and got one – didn’t help (Smashbox, bit of a fail, but more about that some other time). By that point I’d realized that some foundations are made for dry and others for oily skin, shocking! I remember myself going to department stores every week and roaming the beauty counters like an injured animal, looking for very light (or just light, at that point I didn’t care), oil free foundation that had good coverage (because my skin was entering a scary phase and I desperately wanted to hide my face from the world). Nothing, absolutely nothing. Everything from high end brands seemed to be designed to cater to a) dry or mature skin (logic there being that that’s who’d fit the bill of someone making the sort of income necessary to afford such products) or b) combination/oily skin with nonexistent coverage for those with perfect skin, who really don’t need foundation but want to wear it for vanity (the ingénue, 17 year old supermodel type) . And everything was just too dark, tragically dark… The only matte foundation Chanel offered came in a cream compact, the lightest shade of which was easily twenty or so too dark for me. Also, the idea of putting on something that thick seemed like the worst thing to do to my already aching skin. YSL had nothing, all the foundations they kept around boasted light and all-day hydrating properties. Just, ugh!

You know how the consultants at beauty counters always ask if they can help you? I always say: “no, thank you, I’m just looking”. One day I’d had enough and said: “yes, here are my concerns, find me a foundation”. I got lucky, usually they tend to be insincere and say something looks fabulous on you, when in fact it couldn’t be the farthest thing from the truth. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had foundation applied to my jawline and heard the consultant exclaim “it’s a perfect match!” when you’d have to be legally blind to think it was. Especially this one lady at Chanel. Jesus, woman, just admit your brand currently has nothing for me that works and wish me good luck, don’t push something that’s so clearly wrong and make me resent you. But this consultant wasn’t a representative of any particular brand and she actually tried really hard to help me. I think we spent an hour looking at everything from Armani (she thought for sure their lightest shade would work, but the moment she began to apply it she said: “you know, I don’t like how this looks on you – the texture is strange.” - how refreshing is that!? Honesty, awesome!), to Mac, to Estée Lauder, to more YSL to… Just about everything they had. Everything.

I made two discoveries that day – Givechy’s Photo’Perfexion in 1 Perfect Ivory, and Mac Studio Fix in NW15. The consultant was quite literally over the moon when she applied the Givenchy and couldn’t stop praising how well it looked on my skin (polar opposite of the Armani). Yes it looked pretty, still not nearly light enough, but my main concern was the sheerness of it. You could still see all of my problems. So that’s when we headed to Mac and layered on the powder foundation. The result was beautiful! If I do say so myself! Yes you could still see my acne but the colour was the closest thing to perfect I’d ever seen on me. You could tell it still wasn’t light enough and more so in daylight than in the artificial lighting of the store, it did oxidize and wear off in a few hours, but wow! Just wow! I couldn’t stop staring at myself in the mirror, facing it in profile. I just could not stop looking at the way the colour from the side of my face transitioned into almost exactly the same colour as my neck. I sat there mesmerized by my own beauty (pardon my little moment of sheer, unapologetic vanity just there) and didn’t want to leave. The consultant was extremely pleased and offered to put some blush or bronzer on me, she was concerned I now looked ill (she was being polite, I think she actually meant to use the word “dead”). I refused. I wasn’t wearing any other makeup, no mascara, my eyebrows weren’t filled in… No nothing. And I didn’t want anything, I felt so good, so beautiful just having my skin appear better than it ever had before. And so what if I appeared unwell, this is how my skin would look if it were virtually flawless, without any makeup, and I accept and like it that way. I have alabaster skin, I don’t get tan (nor do I have any desire to) – it suits me and I want to emphasize it as best I can.

I left without purchasing anything, wanting to see how this would wear, and stopped at every even remotely reflective object to see if I still looked the way I had in the store. The issue I had, and still do, with Givenchy, is that I can’t get it the way I usually get my high end cosmetics, which is through my mother’s work, involving a generous discount, because they stopped carrying the brand something like a decade ago (with the exception of perfumes). I’ve never bought a single item of luxury cosmetics at retail price, so this was a bit intimidating. It’s very expensive after all, and deciding if it truly was so much better than anything I could get via my mom, caused me heart palpitations. This is actually the same reason I couldn’t justify buying the Mac powder foundation. That powder, in its wonky packaging, would cost MORE than my Lancôme Poudre Majeur Excellence Compact. Just… In my mind, does not compute! I think mid-range brands like Mac, Max Factor, Make Up Store, L’Oreal etc, are seriously overpriced. I don’t think the quality of the product is any better than cheaper brands, but they play on human psychology, where by pricing the products somewhere between drugstore and high end prices, the client somehow believes they get the best of both worlds. I actually think it’s the contrary, you get the worst of either. You know how people often order the second or third cheapest wine on the menu, because they don’t want to appear cheap? In reality, the cheapest wine is actually the second or third one in quality and price, and what people are ordering is the cheapest – restaurants know this and make money off of your ego. Same with cosmetics, well, in my opinion.

Luckily (I mean seriously) I also knew someone from Givenchy. The gorgeous and lovely Karin (same Karin from before), who was kind enough to give me a 10ml sample (or tester size) of the foundation in the above mentioned shade. Yaay! And thank god… Upon getting to use it myself, I was glad I’d stopped myself purchasing the full size. It is a beautiful foundation, but for someone else. It’s just too pink and sheer for me. I think I needed 10-15 pumps (I know! The tester probably disperses a smaller amount than the actual bottle would, at least I hope so) just to cover my face and I didn’t find it to be buildable, at all. It’s lovely for someone with fair, pinky, normal to oily skin, who needs very little coverage – that would be the perfect canvas for this foundation.

I revisited it again when I was about a month into taking Accutane and for the first time had no active, painful acne on my face. Oh the scars and pigmentation were (and still are) there, but I couldn’t feel anything painful and inflamed from simple movements of the face like talking etc., and starting from around that time, my desire to mask my face slowly began to decrease. The obsessive desire to hide has so much to do with just the feeling of your skin hurting, it being ill, and once you don’t have that, or have a much milder case of that, and it becomes purely a cosmetic issue, at least for me, it didn’t seem as important anymore. It felt indescribably nice to put my fingers on my face and not feel any painful bumps. Just, a lovely sensation, which made me feel really good about myself. I actually thought about going out without any makeup at all, but figured I should still do a little something, you know, as to not frighten small children. And that’s when I reached for the Givenchy once more. All it did was blur out the marks on my face very, very subtly and add some colour. I actually enjoyed wearing it for the few times I got to before it became too drying for me, and with extreme dryness, prevention is better than trying to fix it later. I learned my lesson with my hands and wrists (common side effect), which got horrendously broken and dry and took almost two months to get back to normal with prescription creams and animal fat ointments. So the moment I caught my reflection in a store and noticed dry patches around my nose and lips while wearing the Givenchy, I stopped. I will certainly use it sometime later again.

Givechy Photo’Perfexion,1 Perfect Ivory

While the Kanebo foundation was not made for my skin type, it provided more coverage than the Givenchy so I stuck with it. It lasted longer than any other foundation I’ve ever had (how perfectly annoying) – February to October of 2012. For some reason I always keep the bottles of used up foundations, usually leaving a few uses worth of product I could still scrape out in case of an emergency. That was the only foundation I can specifically remember throwing in the bin, hearing the glass bottle hit the bottom - good riddance! Sorry, it should have appeared in the group photo of my foundations, even as an empty bottle, but I just didn’t want it around me anymore in any way shape or form. For someone with more mature skin, someone looking for a natural finish and medium coverage with the luxurious sensation of Fuji-Sensui water and Koishimaru Silk (it did feel nice), go for it, you’ll love it. However, I cannot stress enough how important it is to know your skin and how bad it is for it to be exposed to a product that’s the opposite of what it needs – oil based, hydrating foundations for oily, acne prone skin, or mattifying foundations for dry skin. Either way, there is real and serious potential for disaster. I contemplated repurchasing this foundation now that I have dry skin and luckily had the sense to try a sample first. It doesn’t work for dry skin. On dry skin it literally clings and looks immediately matte. I think someone with normal to combination/dry skin would find it most suitable for their needs.

Which reminds me, and this will make it sound as if I hate Kanebo, and I don’t, some of my HG products are by Sensai, but again, it’s all about educating yourself about what works and is meant for your specific needs. I once ran out of moisturizer and only realized this in the evening when everything was closed. I know a lot of people with oily skin don’t use any moisturizer at all, but I can’t go without it. My skin, especially jawline and forehead, feel extremely dry and tight if I don’t moisturize after removing my makeup and using a toner. Part of it is because of the toner I used for a very long time, which I chose because it was oil free and meant to treat acne (sounds about right), but it contained alcohol, which I didn’t know but suspected. I thought it was a good thing because popped blemishes are essentially tiny wounds that bleed and so forth, and alcohol is just a means of disinfecting the little wound, so it must be good. However, since then I’ve learned alcohol in a toner contributes to dryness by stripping the skin of its natural oils, which in turn causes it to panic and produce more, so you get a cocktail of dehydrated but excessively oily skin – classic me.

Anyway, that tight dryness is really unpleasant and so in desperation, I agreed to use my mom’s moisturizer just for that one night, and I’d buy my regular one the next morning. She loves, absolutely loves the stuff she uses and was excited for me to try it. What does she use? Kanebo Sensai Cellular Performance Emulsion III: “…super moist. Imparts a deep sense of moisture, enveloping the skin in a rich, moist veil.” Brace yourself for what happened to me next. To begin with, I don’t know why, but I need a very light and runny moisturizer. For the life of me, I cannot spread a thick consistency onto my face without pulling way too hard on my skin, I therefore end up using too much, and it feels like too much, because even though I’ve successfully covered the entire area, it’s just too thick and won’t fully penetrate the skin anyway. The majority of it will just sit there feeling hot and uncomfortable. So, naturally, I ended up using WAY too much product. Three pumps? The horrified expression on my mother’s face (each pump is a small fortune you know!) when I used three times as much as she usually does. It felt… Strange. Heavy… Hot. “Whatever...” I thought, and went to bed.

The following morning I awoke to an absolutely shocking reflection in the mirror. I screamed, then I cried, then I felt breathless and panicked. I looked like I’d experienced a chemical burn. My skin wasn’t too bad at the time, a few blemishes here and there and some old pigmentation scars, but what I saw staring back at me was horrendous to say the least. First of all, I was completely red all over. Second, every current blemish was a shade between scarlet and burgundy. Finally, not only were my current blemishes bright and dark, oh no, imagine every single spot you’ve ever had on your face since birth, every single one that you thought had healed years ago, every last one of them had surfaced in a bright red colour. Honestly, it’s as if every mark of damage ever experienced by my skin, things that only remained as an impression in the deepest layers of the dermis, everything came up and took on a life of its own. And in the areas of clear skin, or what is clear skin normally, I had a hundred tiny white blisters.

I was in complete horror and a state of shock. I also had a photo shoot that day, as in, my picture would be taken for some promotional materials of a fashion event. I was… A mess. Thankfully the majority of this went away by the next day and completely in a few more. Also, my foundation at the time was the Teint Eclat de Soie, which is just that good, and I was able to layer it on very heavily (5-7 pumps?) and distracted from my skin by wearing a very bright red lip for the shoot (also professional lighting and Photoshop helped!). Moral of the story is to be savvy and stay away, very far away from products that are not formulated for your needs!

While I was still using the Kanebo foundation, I became a fan of Lisa Eldridge on youtube. Around that time she made a video about foundations for extremely pale skin and I became the definition of obsessed. I hadn’t the slightest clue there were pure white tone adjusters out there, none! Suddenly the prospect of having my face match my neck made me incredibly impatient and excited. None of her ready foundation recommendations were light enough or available in my region, but I didn’t expect to hear about some revolutionary, never before heard of product either. Okay, the Dainty Doll line piqued my interest, but it fizzled rather fast after a quick browse through youtube for product reviews. Also, by then I knew that besides colour, formulation, suitability and finish were extremely important when it comes to foundation, and I had a few which I liked with the only problem being the shade, so I was much more interested in adjusting an existing one than searching for something that would miraculously work on its own. The three main products she mentioned were by Illamasqua, Face Atelier and Mac’s Face and Body.

Face and Body was immediately out for me because of a) my psychological block with Mac, b) she herself said it tends to only work with other F&B foundations (which I wasn’t interested in trying, good thing too, because later I learned it’s an incredibly sheer, water proof foundation targeted more at normal to dry skin. However, for the sake of education, I did try it recently and it did absolutely nothing, maybe less than nothing, for me. It didn’t affect the colour of my face even slightly, my skin just felt sticky after it was applied, so based on my personal experience, I’d only recommend it for arms, legs and body for stage performers, models, dancers etc), and c) after some youtube reviews, apparently it doesn’t even work all that well with F&B either. 

This left me with Face Atelier and Illamasqua. Neither of these are available where I live, by the way, however, I was about to embark on a three month trip to the US of A and was more excited than I care to admit, simply at the prospect of being able to purchase a tone adjuster there (Time Square? Meh, seen it on TV). I couldn’t actually try either one of the foundations and the reviews for both were all positive, so not very helpful. I made my decision on which one to get based on the following reasons: a) Face Atelier Ultra Foundation in Zero Minus was more expensive than the Illamasqua Skin Base Foundation in 01, but was available in pro size, which was 20ml (price per ml was still expensive, but at least it felt like a more minor financial commitment), b) FA is a Canadian brand and getting it in America made more sense than getting a UK brand there (now if I were going to England…), c) FA claimed to be silicone based and entirely oil free (so I deducted it would be ideal for my skin based on that), d) FA was the brand used in HBO’s True Blood (which I LOVE, not that that’s a proper reason) and e) I managed to locate a pro stage makeup shop in Manhattan where I could actually see the foundation and avoid making a bad purchase should I really dislike it in person, who knows. Decision made.

As badly, very badly, as I wanted to go to that shop, timing never worked out and we ended up doing the American thing and ordered it online. I was giddy with excitement when it finally arrived! I wanted so badly to love it and for it to be the answer to all my (foundation) problems. It… Wasn’t. Truthfully, I was in denial about how bad it actually was for me for a good couple of months. I was immediately perplexed by it. Lisa said in her video you need only the tiniest amount of such a product. That’s not how this worked for me. I think the formula for me was approximately 6 pumps of Zero Minus to one of my usual foundation (Kanebo, YSL, Givenchy… Regardless). Needless to say, with those proportions, whatever qualities I liked about my original foundations got completely overpowered and obliterated by the FA.

What confused and frustrated me the most about it was how it behaved on my skin. First of all, all the reviews I’d read said the product would not sheer out your existing foundation. That’s not true. Perhaps this is due to the amount I needed to mix in, but the Ultra Foundation on its own really is rather sheer and not particularly pigmented, so obviously if compared to your original foundation this one is more sheer, it’s going to make yours sheerer in the process. I don’t know what it is about the formulation (and whatever the responsible ingredient is, Illamasqua uses it too), but this product is impossible, and I mean IMPOSSIBLE, to blend. I don’t even know where to begin or how to describe it…

It applies like a tacky, shiny, very see-through layer of rubber that never settles on your skin. Even though I’m able to (eventually) achieve the right shade of foundation, because of how sheer it is, once applied it looks like nearly white moisturizer that doesn’t ever get absorbed. It’s very streaky, settles into fine lines and pores, while refusing to stick to the surface in between. I was, and still am, confused about why it was so sticky and shiny on me when it was supposed to be oil free. It certainly behaved as if it were entirely oil based, but it said it wasn’t so for a long time I just thought the company was lying. Now I realize that the claim “oil free” doesn’t automatically mean it’s suitable for oily skin types, it can still be formulated for dry skin with tons of other means of hydration that will have a reverse and undesirable effect on someone who doesn’t need it.

I was partly in denial about it heating up and pushing my skin to create even more oil (in addition to that already being done by the Kanebo) because I was in a much warmer, humid climate with much more direct sunshine, in unusually scorching months of June and July. At one point I gave up wearing makeup altogether. It was useless, I was glistening three minutes out the door and within an hour everything would have melted away. Once it cooled down and I started using foundation again, I realized the full extent of how bad the FA was for me. I wasn’t sure at first and all in all it was the sum of many unfortunate things, some apparent, others inexplicable, but over that summer and fall my skin became absolutely terrible. Just, cry-myself-to-sleep-terrible. I’d never had such deep, painful acne that wouldn’t go away and would only spread further and further every week. Never.

I’d stopped using the FA all over my face because the finish was just so obviously unattractive, and instead applied it only to more problematic areas. I honestly thought I was imagining it, but no, I wasn’t. It acted like steroids for cysts and made them grow and flare up worse and worse. If it wasn’t for other factors, like the heat, I would have realized this so much sooner and stopped using it immediately, perhaps things wouldn’t have gotten so bad. For a while I didn’t touch it at all and then in the winter I was pretty desperate and used it only on my neck, in areas where I had some deep cystic acne, to take the redness down a little. I figured the skin there is different from the skin on my face and it shouldn’t be as sensitive to products. Also, at the time I was doing a course of antibiotics for my skin, which was really helping (okay, sort of). For the first week it was fine, until it wasn’t. Yes, I started getting more blemishes in the very areas I was using the FA on my neck. Everywhere else on my face my acne was steadily going away, except on my neck where I would apply the FA. That was the final straw. Okay, not really... I just never learn, do I!

When I started my current treatment and my skin began its transition from combination/oily to dry and I realized a need for the exact opposite kind of foundation to what I was originally looking for, I decided to give the Zero Minus another try. I was just really curious! I wanted to see if it would still look like tacky see-through rubber on me now, that way I could honestly say, through personal experience, what skin type this bloody foundation works on! I am happy to report, I now know. Kind of. Yes, YES, it looks nothing like it used to on my skin now. Night and day. However, don’t get too excited. It’s still incredibly sheer and not well pigmented at all. I should be mixing it into my usual foundation, but really, I’m mixing a bit of my usual foundation in with it. It is NOT a good foundation for dry skin. I read a few reviews that said it looked terrible on very dry skin, settled in lines and emphasized dry areas. It’s true. The only reason I didn’t have major issues with that is because I mixed it in with something else that counteracted it.

So who does it work for? I’m at a loss here… Because I’ve had oily and dry skin, I can honestly say, it’s horrendous on one and barely acceptable on the other. The person who could use this foundation will have perfect skin and no sensitivities to anything (absolutely to be avoided if you’re acne prone or have any other form of skin sensitivity), they will have normal to combination/dry skin and they should only need very slight lightening of their usual foundation and not be phased by a decreased level of coverage. At least this is my personal observation that’s come at a very high, painful cost…

Face Atelier Ultra Foundation, Zero Minus

I think Face Atelier’s Ultra Foundation and the foundation I moved on to after finally using up my Kanebo, are in tight competition for the title of “worst foundation I’ve ever used” (and I’ve repurchased the latter, just wait, it gets exciting!). I was on my way home from the US, my skin was awful and I had 2-3 uses of foundation left. I needed something, anything. On the ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn the new foundation from Yves Saint Laurent, Le Teint Touche Éclat, caught my eye. All I knew was it was new, it was YSL, it had more shades available than any other YSL foundation and that was it. Honestly, I was convinced this would be the updated replacement for my beloved Eclat de Soie! The lightest shade they had was BD40, which was too dark, but the actual colour was good on me (it may be tricky to understand, but for me shade/colour and darkness/lightness are two separate characteristics, each of which should match you in an ideal world). A golden, neutral beige. The bottle felt nice, the foundation was beautifully silky and luminous and was ever so slightly perfumed. The first impression was nice, really nice. The coverage was confusingly sheer (not like my precious Eclat de Soie at all!). “Oh, I can build it, this will work…” said I to myself as I applied some to my cheek and went to sleep in my cabin after being up for 20+ hours of travel.

This foundation is… Discrimination. It is NOT a replacement for the Teint Eclat de Soie, which was a beautiful foundation for oily and combination skin providing sufficient, buildable coverage and a beautiful, silky finish. No. As of now, YSL don’t have a single liquid foundation for oily skin, none, which makes me even more furious they’ve discontinued my precious. It would also appear they’ve gotten rid of the more long lasting version of it, the Teint Resist, as well. I don’t understand why they had to get rid of anything at all, but if something had to go, it should have been the Teint Radiance, it’s the most similar to the Teint Touche Éclat! What nut-case at YSL HQ decided they didn’t want people with oily and combination skin as clientele anymore?! I want names, NOW! Whoever is responsible should thank the stars they’ve outlawed guillotines…

Le Teint Touche Éclat, to date, is the only foundation I couldn’t suffer through. I’ve had some bad ones but I’ve always used them up. I come from very little financial means and wasting something is just unacceptable. Something has to be god-awful for me to not use it up. And this was. It does feel and smell lovely and applies like soft, melted butter… On me. The coverage is borderline nonexistent and impossible to build. Not possible I tell you! For weeks I would spend half an hour doing my foundation, hoping it would build up to at least sheer medium coverage and it wouldn’t, regardless of how hard I tried. Remember how I said the Kanebo was clearly not meant for my skin and it made me shiny all over? That may be so, but it never felt hot and uncomfortable and it didn’t wear off. This did. The feeling is comparable to being in an infrared sauna. You can’t see any steam, it’s completely dry around you, but suddenly you start warming up. I do foundation first, then everything else. Already as I would apply it, my skin felt hot, even though it didn’t look red yet. By the time I’d get around to mascara it felt increasingly uncomfortable. It felt hot and suffocating and within an hour, maybe two, it would melt completely off. And this was, again, in Nordic winter. I felt (still do) so betrayed by Yves Saint Laurent, heartbroken. I forced myself to use it, dreading it every morning and hating every instance of having to wear it. It felt uncomfortable and it did nothing to hide my skin imperfections because it was so sheer to begin with, and it would disappear within hours anyway, leaving me with nothing but patches of powder I’d applied over it. It’s just the most bizarre foundation I’ve ever used. If you have oily or combination skin, save yourself the money and stay far away from this.

Yves Saint Laurent Le Teint Touche Éclat, BD40

I used Le Teint Touche Éclat for a month while I looked for something else. It was very difficult for me to admit this was a failure and it will have been a waste, but I just couldn’t do it. My mother has dry skin, I hoped it would work for her, even though the shade was a tad too light for her. She felt very bad for my skin situation and was very supportive and agreed to take it and start using it once her Chanel Lift Lumière was up, so I wouldn’t have to worry about it going to waste. The search meanwhile continued and just as I was THIS close to reassessing my feelings towards Mac (I had tried their Studio Fix Fluid foundation around that time – the colour in NC15 was acceptable, I hated the smell, finish and wear of the foundation itself, but I was more desperate than ever, so…), I somehow stumbled across my third favourite foundation ever.

It was actually kind of funny. The Mac and Christian Dior counters are opposite each other at my local department store and each happened to have a brand representative there at the moment of my introduction to my third favourite foundation ever. I was being helped by a sales person, just a random shop one, not affiliated with any brand. I think she was hanging out at Shiseido, and not that I intended to, but somehow I ended up telling her I was looking for a very light foundation, lighter than NC15. Oh yes, now I remember, we ended up at Shiseido because I’d mentioned wanting yellow foundation and she thought Asian ones were the way to go (but then we met the darkness obstacle, I find it rather annoying that even if a brand, Asian or not, has a very light shade, it’s sold only in Asia! Why??). I was following her around as she walked almost aimlessly, because every time she gravitated to some counter I’d say “nope, tried it, too dark” or something similar. So we stopped between Mac and Dior as she asked the very experienced Dior rep for advice. Now comes the funny part. All of a sudden, I found myself in the middle of a bidding war between Mac and Dior. The latter exclaimed “DIOR makes a the lightest foundation!”, hmm, I was intrigued, then the Mac girl joined us fighting back “Mac’s Studio Fix comes in 12 and 10!”, “Really?!!” I exclaimed. “Yes” she said, and I got SO excited, “we don’t have them” she continued, as my high declined, “but they're coming with a collection at some point”, “oh...” I sighed, “But we can take your information and call you the moment they arrive.” Oh dear, no, I needed something immediately, plus my feelings towards Mac were the same as previously described and I wasn’t prepared to make such a commitment to a product I was just barely interested in. Since Dior was right there and I could actually try the product, I decided to give them the point this time.

It was looking rather promising. Good light-medium coverage, for oily/combination skin in No. 10 – yes, Diorskin Forever sounded extremely promising. The rep applied some to my cheek and proclaimed it a perfect match. I was pretty much out of energy at that point to say it still wouldn’t match my neck, but it was good enough to pique my interest and to have a closer look later. That week I popped by a different department store with a little pod and asked to get some of the foundation to try out for a few days. And it turned out to be really, really nice!   

Diorskin Forever is in its formulation an ideal coming together of qualities for combination skin, much like the YSL Teint Eclat de Soie (Rrr, Yves Saint Laurent, every time I write the name of my beloved I feel enraged towards you, and I’m a pacifist! Well, most of the time...). It’s a light medium coverage right away, sort of buildable, but I wouldn’t bother. Perhaps the nature of my skin is at fault, but I found that layering on foundation only makes for a thick, unnatural coat of product on the parts of skin that is absolutely fine, and the red/purple blemishes and pigmentation marks really shine through just as much regardless of whether it’s a thin, single layer or three. I think it’s because of the colour of my pigmentation issues, red/pink/purple, that the foundation does very little but tone it down a bit. I wouldn’t call it a pink shade, it’s pretty neutral, however, at least on me, Diorskin Forever certainly oxidizes and results in a somewhat orange/pink tonality. My point is, putting pink over pink will hardly do much to neutralize anything, however, something tells me it may provide a better, more effective coverage of marks of a different coloration – sun spots, age spots, basically, marks that are made up of yellow or brown pigment.

It’s a lovely foundation and the one I’ll go back to using once my treatment is done. I haven’t used it on its own in quite a while because of my now dry skin, but I’ve used it as a component in a foundation mixture for about half the summer, the other, current half, I’ve been too lazy, but I’ll touch on my current routine briefly in the end (me, brief? Ha! But I shall try…). It has a light, pleasant fragrance and a nice heavy bottle that feels perfectly weighted and luxurious to hold. Somehow it’s designed in a manner that you can’t really tell when you’re nearly running out of product, the walls of the bottle always have a thin coating of foundation and the bottle is heavy enough for you to not be able to tell, so the need to go out and buy a new one may come as a surprise (or shock). However, that’s not my main problem with the packaging. I absolutely hate that you cannot simply unscrew the pump and get the last bits of product out with a brush. I used to think it was hermetically sealed and completely hopeless unless you smashed the glass, but after poking around with a knife, turns out you CAN get it open. It has a double click closure, the first only slightly keeps the pump attached to the bottle, just enough to prevent drying out but fragile enough to have to store it in an upright position on a flat surface (which is fine in the last few days of using up foundation), and the other, a deeper click, is basically the way it comes, meaning you’ll need patience and a knife to reopen it.

Originally I wasn’t happy with the coverage of Diorskin Forever at all, it wasn’t bad, but at the time I wanted more and was frustrated I couldn’t really achieve that. Since then my skin has improved and I think the level of coverage will be just right, sufficient without looking overdone, once I resume using it. In fact, I’ll most likely be looking into something lighter for no makeup makeup days. Truthfully, if the damn thing didn’t oxidize so badly, all I’d need is a bit of pure white tone adjuster and this would be THE foundation for me. Dior do make a very light yellow shade of this, but I’ve established by process of elimination that the No. 11 shade is available only in Asia. Not even in France! Why?! They’re all made there anyway, why can’t the entire range be available in its place of origin?? Anyway, I’d be very curious to try the 11 and see how it wore on me, especially since on the Dior website it actually looks ever so slightly lighter than the No. 10. For now though, once I mix in some white to the 10 and achieve the appropriate lightness, the colour I will have obtained will be a sickly pale pink, so I’ll need to improvise a way to combat this ill shade. But no worries, I have a few ideas which I’ll hopefully get to start experimenting with in September.

Diorskin Forever, 010 Ivory

The very last and most recent foundation I’ve purchased is the Max Factor Pan Stick. An extremely unusual choice given all I’ve shared of my preferences so far, no? The way I ended up even looking at it was bitter disappointment in my first and so far only concealer – the Bobbi Brown Creamy Concealer. Oh it’s a lovely product, just not for what I wanted to use it for. I got it online for the purpose of covering blemishes, however, it is far too greasy (okay, creamy) and when applied to oily skin, just sheers out and slides off. Utterly useless. I’ve since realized it’s meant to be used for the under eye area (which the online Bobbi Brown makeup artist fiercely denied), and I’ve used it for that (not that I actually require, in my humble opinion, such a product. Yet.), it does brighten and look luminous while still natural, but I personally find it too heavy. I don’t know, it just feels heavy to me, unless you have very dry skin and very dark under eye circles, in which case it will moisturize the skin and cover the darkness. Point being, it didn’t work out for me and I also find it to be terrible value for the amount of product you get. Thus I started looking for concealers or foundations in stick format. Bobbi Brown actually have such a product and it’s very similar to the Creamy Concealer (which means it doesn’t work for me). I find something like this far more convenient and of superior value. I remember this sort of packaging being popular around the time I first started using makeup, so needless to say I was rather surprised it had fallen out of favor. I think the only brands I saw having anything remotely similar were Shiseido, YSL and Max Factor, all with the exception of the latter being too dark, sheer and/or slippery. The Pan Stick was different.

Let me start off by saying the packaging is horrible. HORRIBLE! It feels like the cheapest piece of *blank* you can imagine. The plastic is very light and not dense, the mechanical parts feel like they fit each other very loosely, like it’s not a perfect, solid fit. The shade range is dreadful – I have the lightest one, 25 Fair, and it would suit me if I perhaps suffered a severe sunburn. Finally, the smell is awful. It’s strong and rather irritating and I’m not very sensitive or particular about makeup containing fragrances. This smells like the inside of an oriental shop, you know – jingly scarves, crystal rock formations, figurines of the deity of your choosing and so on – and it lingers, persistently. I think that’s all the negatives. Oh wait, the price too – 12.90 EUR?! You must be joking! Thankfully, it’s 6 GBP at Boots which wasn’t a sum beyond reason for me to sacrifice for something I probably wouldn’t even use, so I had a friend bring me one from London. What attracted me to this product despite all of its drawbacks was its opacity. It’s pretty amazing – I swatched it over my wrist and it literally covered my veins. It’s creamy yet tacky, if that makes sense. I can’t really comment on how it wears as a foundation. Wears wonderfully on my wrist, but I’ve only tried wearing it on my face a few times and only on some areas of my cheeks because it’s just so dark and pink on its own, best I can do is try to pass it off as some sort of blush. To be honest, I’m not sure how good of a foundation it is because, actually, my skin felt somewhat hot with it on, the smell was irritating and it wasn’t as good of a coverage on my face and over actual problem areas as it was on my wrist. Who knows, we’ll see. I never intended to use it as it came, this is another product I intent to subject to crazy, fun experimentation =p.

Max Factor Pan Stick, 25 Fair

That’s it, that’s all of them! Phew, that was exhausting!!! Now for what I actually use… Ever since my Diorskin Forever became too drying for me to wear, I’ve had to become creative. By a curious turn of events, this creativity and rather unique skin situation actually gave some of my greatest foundation failures and disappointments a second chance. The foundation that’s made the single greatest comeback is the Yves Saint Laurent Teint Touche Éclat.

The first time I reached for it once more was when my skin saw its first major improvement and I was comfortable enough to just have some Givenchy Photo’Perfexion on (as mentioned, a very sheer foundation). I only got to wear it a few times before I noticed the corners of my lips and nose get dry patches and I stopped before it got out of hand. This got me to thinking, if the Givenchy was now too drying, perhaps the YSL, which was hidden away from the world in a box with a stash of gift sets, backup perfumes and boxes of candy, would now actually be wearable on me. So I tried it. I was shocked. It didn’t become shiny 10 minutes after application, I didn’t look red and although the coverage was and still is very sheer, at least there was some! However, despite it looking so much better than it had on my skin before Accutane, at the time I was two months into taking it, I could still feel my skin heating up under the foundation. Now though, a few more months on, I can say my skin has been dried out enough for the Teint Touche Éclat to feel comfortable.

Because it has nowhere near the sort of coverage I like and it still felt somewhat unpleasant to wear at the time, what I first started doing was mixing the Dior and YSL foundations. In the beginning I added some YSL to the Dior to add some moisture, and eventually the opposite– some Dior to YSL for extra coverage. The third component in this mixture was the other worst foundation ever – the Face Atelier. I know… What was I thinking? After all those trials and awful side effects to still go back to it – insanity.

Honestly, I’ve mentioned my profile countless times and I stand by my verdict – if you share any of the characteristics of my skin, stay the hell away from that foundation. Save yourself the money, tears and repercussions. I only reached for it again when my skin had changed drastically from what it originally was to see how the foundation would behave. I cannot say definitively that it is perfectly suitable for someone with normal to dry skin and that it won’t cause acne in those individuals, because, yes, my skin type has changed and it doesn’t seem to be causing any more harm, but I also have powerful medication suppressing the formation of acne. It’s very important to bear that in mind.

At the time I saw it as an opportunity, the only opportunity I believe, to actually use up this foundation and not have it be a complete waste. I’m sure many people having had the sort of experience that I did with the product, would have simply thrown it away in a fit of rage (rightfully so), but for me it is extremely difficult to admit failure and wasting money (a substantial amount for me) on something that’s widely considered frivolity, so the fact that it doesn’t get to have the last laugh gives me a sense of closure.

Remember how I said I hadn’t the slightest clue as to who the Face Atelier might work for? I absolutely still don’t (even though I said I kind of did, truthfully, I don't). I’ve applied foundation with my fingers all of my life and when mixed in with the Dior and YSL, the foundation cocktail would settle in lines and emphasize dryness (something the mixture of just the Dior and YSL wouldn’t cause). I only started wearing this three part foundation after I got my second nice brush – the Shiseido Perfect Foundation Brush. I don’t know if it’s a matter of the FA and Dior being silicone based and the YSL having gel particles (wait, that’s probably just a different way of saying “silicone”)… I really don’t, but without a brush they don’t completely mix together and the finish certainly isn’t as nice as the high end foundations offer individually. Fingers, being a smooth surface, glide the foundation on as is, but the brush almost works as a final stage of mixing as it distributes the product, and let me tell you, it’s a beautiful result. I started wearing this mixture and applying it with the brush sometime in the spring and continued to do so for roughly half of the summer.

Why did I stop? Good news and bad news. I’d almost entirely run out of the Zero Minus, that’s why! Thank god… The ratio of each part was 7 pumps of YSL to 3-4 pumps of Dior and 6-8 pumps of the FA. This isn’t very useful and scientific in the sense that each bottle and pump design disperses product differently (and the FA spat out product at random, hands down worst bottle/pump I've ever used – even the sticker is on crooked), but that’s the sort of math I came up with. When I started running extremely low on the FA, I decided to change my foundation routine and save the last bits of it for a special occasion (like my 25^th birthday, but, ironically, I didn’t end up using it at all).

Without the tone adjuster, I felt I couldn’t get away with the Dior/YSL in the summer – the difference in colour compared to my neck bothered me too much (whereas in colder months when I’m covered to the neck most of the time, it’s doable). So, what am I wearing? Just the Teint Touche Éclat. It’s not light enough to begin with and I don’t even have the lightest colour, the 40 is somewhere in the middle, but because of how sheer it is it doesn’t darken my skin all that much. However, it doesn’t benefit the natural difference in lightness between my neck and face either. It’s okay, it’s how I console myself – that they don’t match naturally anyway. It’s still an extremely sheer foundation and doesn’t hide a thing, but it adds a little glow (a huge glow when it’s +30C and I’m suffering), evens out the texture slightly and it looks like I’m not wearing a thing. It looks like my skin with all of its flaws, but better! Having it look like nothing is certainly not the sort of performance I expect from a foundation, and if it were any other time, I’d be outraged and disappointed. But right now I am not, it’s acceptable. I work a lot of hours and get very little sleep, so to have something that I can put on, know it will enhance my look and not have to worry about it wearing off throughout the day (which it does, but very naturally) works for me for the time being, so what if it’s not perfect. It’s my version of a tinted moisturizer (the coverage is certainly comparable).  

The only down side is that it’s left my Shiseido brush idle. It’s not a good brush to apply this foundation with. Applied with fingers, I can spread one pump evenly over my entire face and be content with the result. With the brush it would take 4-5 pumps. Somehow the product just disappears into it. I tried using the dry brush to blend and soften the edges (since the colour differs quite a bit from what it should be), but it’s far, far too tedious of a task for the Shiseido brush. I can see now how a goat brush with a large surface area would do the job so much better (something to think about). For now I simply press the foundation into my jawline with the palms of my hands and hope no one examines me under a microscope.       

In retrospect, these are completely useless swatches. The yellow lamp I was under changed the very peachy shades of nearly all of these to yellow, and because most of them have light reflective particles, they look lighter under direct, artificial lighting, than they actually are, but you can use your imagination (ESPECIALLY with the first three foundations from the right - trust me, in reality they were completely orange on my hand). 

So there you are - my foundation story so far. I didn’t schedule any new additions to my brush family in the month of August and instead decided to invest into some foundation related experimentation. I’ve narrowed down my list to three products (originally there were 7, funny how given enough time you end up gravitating to what you really need) that will hopefully arrive within the coming weeks so I can start playing around with them. I’m very excited! Perhaps this is because my high school was so poor we couldn’t afford to carry out any practical experiments in chemistry classes, so this is like a very old itch that’s finally getting scratched =D! Thank you for reading if you’ve made it this far, and I will report back with my findings and discoveries =).