WEEK 3: Foundation

Hola Dalimoos,

Welcome back for the third instalment of #TheSOProject.  This week it is all about foundation.

To be honest, I have never really been a foundation wearer because I had such oily/acne prone skin I never really found a foundation that suited my skin.  The problem I always had was it oxidising on my skin and turning orange or slipping and sliding and it ending up down near my jaw line in one big slick...not attractive!

Because of this I am not really able to go in depth on this post but only really tell you the "small" amount of products that I found did help especially on a night out or on a day that I was having a severe acne breakout.

I do tend to talk in the past tense in this post re: using foundation as since being on Roaccutane I don't use foundation on a day to day basis I only use concealer and powder.  It is now on the "rare" occasion of a night out that I will still use a foundation!

Finding the correct shade for your skin tone:

To find the correct shade of foundation you need to determine what skin tone you are, the best way of doing this is to do the vein test.  In natural light (during the day), look at your inner wrist,  if your veins are mainly blue then this is means you are cool toned (pink), if your veins are green then you are warm toned (yellow). If your veins are a mix of blue and green then you are a like me and of a neutral tone (a mix of both pink and yellow).  

In the highstreet it is harder to get an exact colour match of foundation but if you know your skin tone then it is slightly easier determining what foundation has a pink hue and what foundation has a yellow hue.  Then to get a colour match, put a stripe on your jawline, go in to natural day light and see which one matches your skin without too much blending.

Base:

Primers

If you are a sufferer of oily skin, you should think about using a primer before your foundation (but applied after your moisturiser).  Primers help with the foundation sticking and not sliding off your face.  Personally, I do not think it helps with the foundation staying put on your face, but it does make your appearance seem smoother and the foundation does look nicer on.  The three primers I go between are the Porefessional from Benefit, 17 Photo flawless and Bare Minerals Prime Time.

Foundations:

There have been three trusty foundations which I can honestly say suited my skin and I have used for many years.

The first being Bare Minerals foundation.  I had two different types, the matte one for that time of the month when your face is exceptionally oily because of hormones and the normal one when my skin wasn't as oily (but still oily).  I found this foundation has the most staying power for the day time and it was buildable if you preferred a fuller coverage, I never found it powdery and when I felt the oil was coming through I would just use some more mineral veil (finishing powder) and it would re-set the make up!

The second being Revlon Colorstay for Oily/Combination skin - I absolutely love this foundation for a night out, it has the best staying power before I felt the need to blot with my face powder.  It never oxidised with my skin and had excellent fuller coverage, which I prefer on a night basis not so much on a day to day basis.

The third foundation was the Bourjois healthy mix serum foundation.  This was my day to day go-to when I felt I needed to mix it up a bit, this foundation is a light to medium coverage.

With all foundations there are certain tools you can use.  The best tools you can use is your hands, but if like me you are paranoid about bactaria transferring on to your face then there are various brushes you can use that do a great job.

Tools:

The brushes I like using are:

Bare Minerals: I always use the brushes provided in the Bare Mineral starter kits.  To use Bare Minerals properly, you  only need to put a small amount of the powder in the lid and using the full flawless face brush to swirl in the lid, tap the excess off and then buff on to your face, buffing in circular motions from the hairline and buffing inwards.  If you have smaller areas that need more of a coverage, then you can use the foundation with a concealer brush using the same technique of swirl, tap and buff.

 

Liquid Foundations: These brushes are my favourite to use with liquid foundations.  (from Left to Right) The Real Techniques Buffing brush, a CVS duo fibre brush, Real Techniques duo fibre brush, this is smaller and more dense than the CVS one, GOSH foundation brush - this is more of your traditional brush and it can streak if it is not blended well enough.  Lastly, The Real Techniques expert face brush.  A part from the CVS which I bought from superdrug, all my real techniques and my GOSH brush I bought from trustee old Boots!

You can apply liquid foundation directly with your hands like mentioned above or you can use the brushes using a buffing circular motion until the product is blended in.  A top tip is to always make sure you blend the foundation down your neck this is so you do not have a visible foundation line on your jaw!

So these are the products I have found that have helped me a long the way and may be you have tried them yourselves?  I am now thinking that I will probably experiment more with different types of foundation as my skin is not as oily as it used to be.  I will keep you posted of my new findings...

Until next time my lovelies.

Ciao for now xx