REVIEW: Neutrogena Healthy Skin Foundation

During a recent BOGO 50% off at CVS, I picked up the Neutrogena Healthy Skin Foundation after seeing a review of it on YouTube.

Product Description:
Neutrogena Healthy Skin^® liquid makeup takes over where your skin care leaves off. Silky-light coverage glides on for a perfectly natural look, while the exclusive blend plus Broad Spectrum SPF 20 work together to visibly improve skin's luminosity, tone, and texture.

• Flawless coverage, lightweight, silky formula
• Exclusive blend of antioxidants and Broad Spectrum SPF 20
• Maintains skin's young and healthy look
• Available in 12 new shades

It retails for about $12-13 at the drugstore which is kind of on the pricey side for a drugstore foundation.  It comes in a round glass bottle and you get 1fl oz. which is about average.  Unfortunately there is no pump so you have to pour it out onto your hand.  For $13 I should get a pump, get with it Neutrogena - even the $8 Covergirl foundations are coming with a pump.  After only a couple of uses the inside of the cap is already gross.

I had expected to dislike it - mostly because the first time I applied it, I was in the car after just buying it and wanted to see how it looked on my skin.  Application with fingers made my fine lines look like the Crypt Keeper's when I smiled - YUCK.  I managed to not run directly back into the store with the receipt and take the time to do a proper test and review.

After using my regular SPF30 moisturizer, I applied the CVS dup for the L'Oreal Professional Secrets Primer, smoothing that all over my face and really pressing it in over my T zone where I get the oiliest.  Then with a dampened Beauty Blender sponge I applied a light layer of the Healthy Skin Foundation in Natural Beige all over my face, then a second just where I needed more coverage (the sun damage on my cheeks).  This will not completely cover very red blemishes or very dark spots, you will need a separate concealer for that.  After giving the foundation a few minutes to set, I finished the rest of my makeup and set my T zone with the Revlon Nearly Naked Powder in Light.

Lovely demi matte finish

Natural Beige was a great match for my medium yellow undertoned skin, I'm somewhere between an NC25 and NC30 right now

Swatching this foundation against MAC SFF in NC30, I think it is less yellow than the MAC, not as dark and the color does not change/oxidize.  This is key if you dont want to turn into an Oompa Loompa after you leave the house.  

It feels very light on the skin, like no makeup at all, and there is no tackiness to it.  I had tried using the Real Techniques Buffing brush to put this on but I thought the finish looked a little cakey and got the best results with a damp Beauty Blender.

This did NOT oxidize like the MAC SFF so stayed very true to color all day

I actually had someone comment on how lovely my skin looked which is always a good thing.  After about 4 hours I am starting to glow a bit in the T zone.  Not quite needing to blot and it's kind of looking like the L'Oreal True Match Lumi finish.  Natural and very pretty,  it photographs very well.  I did not do any flash photos to see if there was flashback from the SPF.

8 hours after initial application - NO BLOTTING

Eight hours after I applied the foundations I can see some break down around my nose where some redness is showing a little, also on my cheeks a bit but it seems to wear nice and evenly so there are no glaring patches.

12 hours after application

Twelve hours later I am a teeny bit shiny but I think the foundation held up really well.  It did a great job of putting a soft focus on my skin and blurring my sun damage and healing blemishes.  After just one day of use, I'd have to say I'm loving it.  I'll be wearing it every day for the next couple of weeks to see if it breaks me out and will update this post if it does.  While I might have been grousing about the cost, I'm going to have to say yep - worth the $13 price tag, it performed like a high end foundation easily.

Ladies with fine lines, use a good PRIMER!  They were only really noticeable when I smiled which I can live with.

What else I have on - 

Eyes:  Maybelline Color Tattoo in Bad to the Bronze all over the lid and up into the crease, Urban Decay's Snakebite patted just on the lid, Bare Minerals Ready Shadow Palette in The Star Treatment (the peachy bronze shimmer blended into the crease), Wet & Wild's Brulee under the brow bone,  Bobbi Brown Slate on the brows

Mascara:  Maybelline One by One Waterproof to set the curl and lengthen, and Maybelline The Falsies to volumize

Cheeks:  Milani Rose D'Oro blush, Lorac Spotlight highlighter and NYX Matte Bronzer

Lips: EOS lip balm and Revlon Lip Butter in Peach Parfait

Packaging: C

Color Match: A+

Longevity: A

Finish: A

OVERALL GRADE:  A-

DISCLAIMER:  I bought this with my own money and am not affiliated with Neutrogena at all.  All opinions are solely my own.

REVIEW: L'Oreal True Match Lumi

I had been wanting to check out L'Oreal's True Match Lumi since Kandee Johnson raved about it.   They advertise as "Lightweight buildable coverage that lasts up to 8 hours"  with a Luminous finish.

I popped into CVS with some ExtraBucks and brought home two shades, W3 and W4 both work pretty well on my skin tone and lean a bit more on the peach side than my skin is but it gave me a healthy glow that I rather liked.  My skin is an NC30 most days and somewhere between NC25 and NC30 during the winter months.  Right now I think I am closer to an NC25 than a 30.

Before: bare faced, sun damage, enlarged pores, fine lines

After: Imperfections nicely blurred, the color is a good match and the finish is lovely.

The consistency of the foundation is pretty watery, thankfully the pump allows for precise portion control when you apply it to your hand before blending it onto your face.  Kudo's there L'Oreal, for $13 I expect a pump these days (I'm looking at you Revlon Colorstay - you need to up your game)

I applied the Rimmel Fix and Perfect Pro Primer over my daily moisturizer, and waited about 5 minutes for the primer to set.  Applying the W3 to the center of my face, my nose, cheeks, chin and forehead with foundation brush, then blended that in with a dampened Beauty Blender.   I used W4 around the perimeter of my face, under my cheek bones down to my jawline and neck, and up along my temples and hairline.   I think that a darker variation in the two colors would have given more definition but I do like the W3/W4 combination for a really natural color.  I kept the rest of my makeup pretty minimal, a little bit of blush and bronzer and some eyeliner/mascara.  I did have a pretty big pimple on my nose that I concealed with the new TrueMatch concealer stick in W4-5 that I will review in a later post.

 True Match Lumi does a good job of blurring your imperfections but is not more than a medium coverage foundation after two coats.  You are not going to be covering up big zits or dark spots without the help of a good concealer.  You can still see some of my sun damage peeking thru on my cheeks and nose, but overall I really like the pretty glow it gives and it looks very natural on the skin.  I did not set this with either powder or a spray to really see how long it would last on my oily skin.  The luminous finish is pretty but I'm expecting it to melt right off my face in the span of a few hours.

You can see here the finish is luminous and glowing

After only about 3 hours the glow from the foundation and my own oily T zone were starting to make me really feel the need to blot.  The coverage had started to break down around my nose where you can start to see the redness as well as on the cheek area and the top of my nose where the blemish is.  By the 6 hour mark there was pretty much nothing left on my face in the T zone, and when I took a cleansing cloth to my skin, there was minimal foundation pigment left to wipe away.  This was my main disappointment with the product, and I had hoped the primer would have kept it from fading a bit longer.

After 4 hours, you can see the foundation fading on my T zone

This foundation would probably work really well for someone with normal/dry skin that doesn't need a ton of opaque coverage.  The packaging gets a plus for the pump bottle, but the wear time gets a minus for how fast I'd go through a bottle with the constant need to do touch ups.  The finish really is beautiful, and the blendable formula makes it very easy to work with.  The SPF 20 is always a plus in my book and I didn't have any issues with it settling into my enormous pores or fine lines.  Set with a powder and a finishing spray would probably prolong the wear of the foundation to 6-8 hours to cover a full work day with maybe a blot half way through.  My bottle will be going back to the store alas.

FINAL GRADE: B-

Foundation Swatchapooloza - Finding a good match

As a self admitted foundation junkie, I love trying new drugstore foundations. The very lenient return policies at CVS, RiteAid and Walgreens makes trying them pretty easy.

Trying to find a good foundation MATCH however, can be a serious pain in the ass. Fluorescent lighting, distortion from packaging and lack of testers make for an Oompa Loompa nightmare of trial and error. Temptalia's foundation matrix makes this a little easier, but you still have the natural variations within a given shade range, oxidation of some colors on oily skin (couWTFMACgh) and sometimes advertised undertones aren't what you expect (I'm looking at you L'Oreal True Match - more yellow and less peach please).  Start with the foundation matrix to get an idea of where to start, then pick up the shade lighter as well to compare.  Save your receipt!

When you are testing out a foundation, shade comparisons to ones you already know look good on you can really help the selection process. Sometimes if I'm feeling particularly ambitious, I will even use two foundation colors, one on my nose, cheeks, forehead and chin, and a darker one on the outer perimeter of my face to give it a little more dimension.  Fancy I KNOW.

Last time I went to the MAC counter at Nordstrom they color matched me to NC30 in the Studio Fix Fluid foundation. I still have a tiny sample of it and since most people know what their MAC shade is I'll use it here for reference.

Foundation Key:

1. Maybelline Super Stay 24hr - Classic Beige, yellow undertone that was closest to the MAC NC30 oxidized color
2. Revlon Colorstay - Warm Golden, yellow/peach undertone that was also a very close match to NC30
3. Revlon Colorstay - Medium beige, pink undertone in this one, not a good match for me
4. Maybelline FIT Me - 220 - medium with strong yellow undertone, this was one of the best matches to my actual skin tone
5. Maybelline FIT Me - 210 - lighter medium with strong yellow undertone, a hair too light for my face but would be good used in conjunction with the 220 if I just used it on the center portion of my face with 220 on the outer
6. L'Oreal True Match LUMI - W4 - a very peach leaning undertone, but can work if you dont forget to blend it down your neck
7.  L'Oreal True Match LUMI W3 - also very peach toned, slightly lighter than W4, another one that would work well in the center of the face with W4 on the perimeter
8. MAC Studio Fluid Fix NC30 - medium with strong yellow undertone, look how dark that puppy gets when it dries!  I was pretty surprised and the color difference and this is why I never bought a bottle of the stuff.  The price tag didnt help sway me either.
9.  Neutrogena Healthy Skin - Natural Beige yellow undertoned but not quite as yellow as either the MAC or FIT Me foundations.

Freshly applied and still slightly damp, natural sunlight on my NC30 skin, the inside of my arm stays pretty light.

20 minutes later, the MAC SFF NC30 was the only one that significantly darkened,  #4-7 seemed to dry lighter

I'd say if the MAC NC30 oxidized color works well for you, the Maybelline Super Stay 24 in Classic Beige, Revlon Colorstay in Warm Golden, and the Neutrogena Healthy Skin in Natural Beige are all good choices.  The Lumi and FIT Me foundations would be a good fit if you found the oxidized NC30 too dark.

Good luck!

Orofluido - Beauty Elixir for the hair

Sometime last year I received a sample of some hair elixir in my Birchbox.  I tossed it aside and thought meh, whatever.  A few months after that I discovered it forlorn and forgotten in a drawer and tried out a couple of drops in my hair.  There was just something about it, the smell of vanilla and amber maybe, or the texture that was silky but not greasy like some hair serums (I'm looking at you Oscar Blandi), or how it tamed my fussy hair that was no longer the smooth straight glossy mane of my youth.  Before I knew it I was frantically shaking the sample of it and thumping it against my palm to get that very last drop out.

You know something is a favorite if there is thumping involved people.

Orofluido is some magical stuff, and it smoothed the fly always, calmed down the damaged hair fro, and makes your hair smell AMAZING.  It makes me think of sex, not in the post coital pool chlorine way but in the heavy petting feeling someone up sort of way.  When I went to Birchbox to order some more and saw the price, $29 for 3.4oz, I thought, "Holy shit is this stuff made of virgin midget tears or something?  You must be kidding me," closed the browser and flipped off my screen.  Fuck you Birchbox, making me crave something that CLEARLY was over priced and SURELY overrated.

A couple weeks go by and another couple of fruitless thumping sessions before I realize that I must have more of this stuff.  My hair was starting to look more like Don King's and I resented trying to use the bottle of Oscar Blandi Jasmine Elixir in its stead.  Then the genius of the marketing folks at Birchbox finally got to me.  When you subscribe to their monthly Birchbox, and religiously post a review of the items therein, you receive 10 Birchbox points per review.  100 points equates to $10 you can use in their store.  Since each box has 4-5 items you can review, it doesn't take long to rack up the points.  With the next month's Birchbox I accumulated enough points to get my Orofluido elixir for half off.  WIN.

The bottle even came with 3 samples to share with my friends for the folks at Orofluido are devious clearly.

I also purchased the shampoo and conditioner which aside from a similar scent were nothing to write home about and not worth the price tag. They are still in my shower and I still force myself to use it because they were expensive. A complete meh tho so save yourself the $$ and just get the elixir.

DISCLAIMER - I am not affiliated with either Birchbox or Orofluido, I purchased these items with my own money and these are entirely my own thoughts on the products.

Zoya 3 for Free polishes

If you didn't get in on the recent deal from Zoya where you could get three of their polishes and only pay $10 in shipping, you missed out. Regularly Zoya polishes retail for $8 a piece so you would have saved yourself $24!

I took advantage of the opportunity to pick up a few I had been coveting for some time. The minimal outlay of cash did a good job of assuaging my polish stash guilt.

Blaze - cranberry with pink and silver micro glitter - my favorite of the bunch. It is opaque after two coats, just ignore the slightly streaky nature of the first coat. All will be well trust me. The formula was pleasant with the strokes self leveling smoothly and the end result a gorgeous jelly sandwich without the work of actually having to layer polishes.

Storm - holographic micro glitter in a black base. Oh how I had desired thee, trying to replicate you with other black polishes and layering WnW's Hannah Pinktana over, pretending it was you. How disappointing was it to realize that my dreams of you were more satisfying than the actual reality of you. Gloppy and thick, the application was awkward trying to get even coats laid down. Luckily only two were needed for opacity.

Feifei - a blue gold and silver microglitter - I'd read the reviews and I'd have to agree that Zoya overstated the opacity of this one. It took me 4-5 coats to get complete opacity and by then I felt like I had Lee Press on Nails on. That being said the color is quite lovely and reminds me a lot of OPI's The World is Not Enough from their Skyfall collection. TWNE has a rosy beige tone to it where Feifei leans blue.

All in all I was happy with the polishes selected, my love for Blaze eclipsing my minor disappointments with Storm and Feifei, and the price was definitely right.

When a polish doesn't live up to the hype, slap another polish you like on as a top coat. I put Revlon's Heavenly which is a clear jelly with chunky champagne colored hex glitter with bluish holo glitter over the top of Storm. Kinda neat with a bit of that mosaic tile vibe to it