I have a confession, I...am a foundation junkie. Foundation, in my opinion, is the most important part of having flawless makeup. It evens out skin tone and texture making your face look like a clean, blank canvas not marred by redness, acne or unevenness. It helps your concealer, blush, bronzer, highlight, powder, etc. stay all day and it can even protect your skin from sun damage (as long as it has SPF in it of course!). All of this sounds great but finding the right foundation for you and your skin can be pretty complex.
Let’s break it down:
First off you’ll need to figure out your skin type. Do you have dry skin, oily skin, normal skin, combination skin or sensitive skin? Observe how your skin acts throughout the day, does it get flaky and peely? Does it get super oily? Does it react to certain products? Do you have mature skin? Do you like your foundation to look dewy or matte? All of the answers to those questions will be information that will be important when choosing a foundation.
Let’s start by answering some of those questions.
1. If your skin is dry: your skin is flakey, peely, feels tight, looks a bit dull.
You should opt for a foundation with a formula that is hydrating. Some foundations can cling to dry patches and uneven texture, this will emphasize them even more.
Drugstore option: L’oreal True Match Lumi Foundation
Higher End option: Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk Foundation
2. If your skin is oily: your skin produces excess oil, you find yourself having to blot your skin throughout the day, your skin is shiny, slippery.
You should go for a foundation with staying power, one that will last all day. These foundations tend to be mattefying which will soak up excess oil.
Drugstore option: Revlon Colorstay Whipped Foundation
Higher End option: Estee Lauder Double Wear Foundation
3. If your skin is combination (my skin type): your skin is dry on some parts of your face while oily on others. Typically this means the center part of your face (T-zone) is oily where the rest of your skin is dry.
You should choose a foundation that is neither super hydrating or super mattefying. Truthfully depending on whether you skin is more oily or dry, you can get away with using several different kinds of foundation.
Drugstore option: Revlon Colorstay Foundation (different from the Revlon Colorstay Whipped Foundation)
Higher End option: Nars Sheer Glow Foundation (great for sensitive skin as the formula is paraben free. This is also one of my favorite foundations) or Tarte Amazonian Clay Airbrush Foundation.
4. If you have mature skin: you have aging skin, you have wrinkles, fine lines, uneven skin tone.
You’ll want to find a foundation that doesn’t settle in fine lines. You’ll also want to look for a foundation that isn’t too full coverage as this tends to look cakey on older skin types.
Drugstore option: Neutrogena Healthy Skin Liquid Makeup or L’oreal True Match (my mom likes this one!)
Higher End option: Estee Lauder Double Wear Light
Another thing you’ll want to take into consideration when choosing a foundation, is what shade you are. Generally foundations come in a variety of colors ranging from light to medium to dark shades. Within these shades there could also be different tones, that being warmed toned, cool toned or neutral toned. A good example of this would be the L’oreal True Match, click here to see all the different shades!
This might seem a little confusing. You might be asking, how in the hell am I going to find the right shade? Well, there are a few guidelines you can follow. Basically you’ll want to determine if your are fair/light, medium or dark skinned, as a guideline you can reference some foundation shades and find one that looks closest to your skin color. Then you’ll want to figure out what tone you are or what undertones you have in your skin. Generally people have either pink, yellow or neutral undertones. The simplest way to find out what undertones you have is to look at the veins on your wrist. If they are blue you have pink/cool undertones, if they are green you have yellow/warm undertones, if they are a mix you have neutral/a mix of yellow and pink undertones.
Now this is where things get a little tricky. You might think that if you have pink undertones you would go a foundation that also has pink undertones, and you could, but depending on your preference you might want to go with one that has more neutral or yellow undertones to balance out the pink. I, for example, have pink to neutral undertones so I can get away with wearing a lot of different tones. However I tend to look too pink if I use a foundation with pink undertones, so I tend to wear foundations with yellow undertones. However be warned that you don’t want to look jaundiced either! This is where finding foundations might take a little trial and error.
Quick Tip: You should match your foundation to the color of your neck, not you face, this way you can avoid those embarrassing foundation lines!
Lastly when looking for foundations you’ll want to decide what finish you want. Generally your options are matte, satin/natural and dewy. Matte will leave your skin with no to nearly no shine, satin/natural will leave your skin with a little bit of glowiness and dewy will leave your skin looking glowy. Generally people with oily skin will go for a matte finish, people with combination skin will go for any of the three and people with dry skin will go for a satin/natural or dewy finish.
I hope this was helpful! If you’d like to learn more about foundations let me know in the comments and I can get more specific! Thanks for reading!
Laters,
xxgk
Head over to the reddit.com/r/makeupaddiction community! There's lots of helpful info there as well as a bunch of lovely people willing to give advice!
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