Foundation Face Off -- Drugstore vs Luxury

As promised.... My thoughts on a couple contenders for the best drugstore foundation.

My favorite is Too Faced Born This Way. This foundation is lightweight, medium buildable coverage. It blends beautifully. It blends with every product I have used with it. This is probably the best foundation I have ever used.

In an effort to find a foundation that I love just as much, without the $39 price tag, I went to CVS and came home with 3 options.

Maybelline Dream Mousse ($8.99)
Milani Conceal + Perfect ($10.99)
Rimmel Stay Matte ($5.49)

#3 -- Of those I tried, Maybelline was my least favorite. It felt so heavy on my skin. It blended well and has a decent shade range. These are the only good things I can say about it. I used my Porefessional primer and this product still managed to settle into every pore and line on my face. I looked older with it on. This is probably one of the worst foundations I've ever used. This actually made me sad because their age rewind is one of my favorite concealers. Their still stiletto mascara is also a favorite. Maybelline makes nice affordable beauty products but this is a hard pass for me.

[Note: no pictures were taken of this product. I returned it before realizing I hadn't taken any.]

#2 -- As a, somewhat, close second Milani is also a pass. Now, my friend warned me that picking a shade is difficult. I went in knowing that and did my best to get something relatively close to my skintone. The first sign of trouble was in blending. It does not play well with other products. This foundation said no to blending with my Tarte Shape Tape and my Smashbox Contouring Set. It didn't particularly like being powdered either. So I went a day, basically foundation only, and did a wear test. What I saw is that it is long-wearing and didn't settle into most of my fine lines. It ultimately started breaking up around my mouth. I was able to smooth it back out without much effort. But..... the biggest problem was it oxidized and took a weird turn to a orangey yellow tone. I kinda looked like I had jaundice. At that point I had to wash it off. I bought a cool-toned shade but this happened anyways. I'm not sure if I want to give this another shot in a different shade or let go. I'll update you all if I decide to go round 2 with it.

#1 -- The one foundation I was seriously unsure about is the one I actually love. I was able to wear it for a long time yesterday. It lasted from 8 AM to around 11 PM. It started breaking up around my mouth close to 10 PM. I'm pretty impressed by that wear time. It's a medium coverage foundation that is buildable but is a little high maintenance. It dries down matte pretty quickly so you have to apply it in sections. I used a damp beauty blender and it went on easily. Since it's matte I didn't powder. I wanted to see how long that finish would last. It works well with other products. It blended so well with my contour. Somewhere between 2 and 3 yesterday my forehead got a little oily and did so for the rest of the day. The rest of my face stayed matte. This blew me away. I gave this foundation a slightly unfavorable condition (by wearing a hat all day) and it stayed beautiful. I didn't feel like I was wearing makeup. This was a A+ test.

There's my thoughts on a few foundations out there. If you like these types of tests, let me know. If there's a product you want me to try out, let me know that too. I bought several skincare products when I was out with my girlfriends yesterday and will be trying them out soon.

Thank you for joining me here today. I will see you all next time!