Revlon Color Stay Liquid Foundation

This is how I looked at 5:20pm with the Revlon Colorstay Liquid(Caramel 400) and Queen Collection Mineral Pressed Powder (Brown Bronze 1) without ANY touch-ups or blotting.  I put my make up on this morning before work at 7:15am.  This is unheard of!!!

                                                         

                                                                  Me Blotting at 5:25pm

No body believes me when I explain how ridiculously oily I am.  The sheets just stick to my skin by themselves. SMH

Me after Blotting w/o any extra powder.  So technically no touch ups, just blotting. ;-)

Revlon Color Stay liquid foundation is advertised to last up to 16 hrs.  So far I've made it for 10hrs without having to add more powder, just blotting was done.  I'm thoroughly impressed.  Could it be that I've finally found my "holy grail" foundation????  I'll have to put this up to the test against the Coastal Scents HD foundation before I make my final decision.  I plan to wear the Coastal Scents HD foundation tomorrow and see how it goes.  I'll keep you posted on the results. :D

Drug Store Foundation

Never in a million years would I have guessed that I could wear drug store foundation.  I have always felt that it was such a gamble trying to find my color without being able to try it on.  Well since I saw and heard Erin Bailey (Scandalous Beauty) and Celebrity MUA Sam Fine talk about Black Opal, I thought I'd give it a try.  Boy am I glad I did.  I absolutely love Black Opal foundation sticks.  I don't even know what else to compare them to.  I guess the discontinued MAC Studio Sticks, but Black Opal Foundation sticks put the MAC ones to shame.  Sam Fine actually helped to develop the formula for these foundation sticks.  My color is Truly Topaz.  I use Heavenly Honey as a a concealer under my eyes and for highlighting my face.  I bought them last summer around July 2010 from Wal-Mart for $8.97.  You know Wal-Mart has those weird prices.  So for more product, more coverage, better finish, and a cheaper price, I fell in love with the Black Opal Foundation Sticks.  Oh the MAC Studio Sticks used to cost $29.50. 

See below:

I stumbled upon another drug store foundation that I was pleasantly surprised about.  It's the Cover Girl Clean Oil Control liquid foundation.  I was going through the Kroger Grocery Store Cosmetics aisle when I saw it on sale for like $4.75.  I know it wasn't $5.  I was out of Studio Fix Fluid and I figured hey why not.  Even with my MAC employee discount this is still cheaper.  Well this turned out to be a winner as well.  I wear the color Tawny.  It matches exactly.  I couldn't believe it.  Now, unfortunately it doesn't keep me from getting shiny, but really nothing does so it's okay.    I wouldn't say this is my favorite liquid foundation of all times, but I will say that if I ran out I'd consider getting another bottle.  Especially if it's priced under $5.  Oh and the coverage is really good.  It has a buildable coverage that goes from light to full.  See below

I think the color of the label may have changed since last year.

Coastal Scents Mini Haul

I purchased a few products from Coastal Scents two weeks ago.  I talked about how much I love the concealer palette already but I didn't mention the other things that I purchased.  See below.

African Black Soap, 4 foundation samples in ST11, Smacks lip gloss in Coral Funk, 2 eye shadow samples

Woo Hoo!  I finally got the Smokey Palette!

Both the concealer and Smokey palettes were very good choices.  I'm quite proud of myself.

It's a lot smaller than I expected

Brand new!

Ooooh Pretty Pretty colors all arranged together in families.

I didn't swatch all of them just the first column

Very pretty and pigmented

Coral Funk 

Me gusta!! It shows up more orange than pink in real life.  I love it and it's not too sticky.

Looks with these products will come later. :-)

My Perfect Foundation Journey

I think the very first liquid foundation I ever used was Clinique Superfit.  Unfortunately it has a horrible reputation for turning orange, which it would do on me as well.  From there I moved to Clinique Perfectly Real foundation.  For the most part I never had a problem with the color, it just didn't help with oil and it didn't give enough coverage.  I would have to build and build, and put on the Perfectly Real Powder Foundation on top to get the look I desired.

Next was Estee Lauder's Double Wear.  I think this was the 1st foundation that I fell in love with.  It did the best at helping me stay matte but during the summer as I would get darker, I would fall in that "in- between" color that they didn't have.  Actually Estee Lauder's Double Matte would've been even better, but they still didn't have a color that matched me.

So later I went back to wearing Clinique.  They came out with Even Better Foundation.  This was the first time I ever had the perfect match for my skin.  I mean exactly the same color as my skin.  The major flaw was that it helped to hyrdate the skin.  Uh, that's a no-no for me.  It gave wonderful buildable coverage but I was just too oily to wear it without having to constantly blot or take an extra 10min mattifying my skin before putting it on.

Next was M.A.C. Studio Fix Fluid.   For the most part, I still don't have much of a problem with this foundation.  It's pretty similar to Estee Lauder's Double Wear.  I can always fall back on it.

The newest M.A.C. liquid foundation is Pro Longwear.  I use it a lot on clients.  However, this foundation lacks a good color range.  It doesn't even have the same amount of colors as Studio Fix Fluid.  There's no NW 43 (which would've probably matched me), no NC37, and no NW 47.  NC 45 is too light for me and NC50 is too dark and orange.  So I don't wear it.  I have a whole bottle that I received when it first came out in my Gratis, but I don't use it.  I actually put it in my kit.  I started talking about this foundation because it really is nice.  It actually lasts really long and I wasn't as oily throughout the day.  But who has time to mix colors together every morning.  Better yet, why should I have to do that when I could just use something else from a different company who has a better range of colors.

It would be perfect if M.A.C. would come out with a better variety.  NC47 would be spectacular for me.  NC60 and NC65 would be perfect for so many women I come in contact with.  I wish M.A.C. would realize that just because your skin is darker doesn't mean it's more red.  You can still have a golden undertone with darker skin.

Coastal Scents HD Foundation Samples

I've been wanting to get MUFE HD Foundation for over a year now.  Well actually, I've been wanting both that and the Matte Velvet Foundation.  I did buy the Matte Velvet foundation around this time last year but I returned it after wearing it twice and not really seeing much of a difference between it and Studio Fix Fluid.  Since I was still working in a permanent position at with M.A.C., my discount trumped the almost $40 for the Matte Velvet.  Since MUFE HD foundation was even more expensive, I've only been matched and had samples.  I don't know if I'll ever spend $40+ on some liquid foundation.  Well...I take that back, I'd spend $100 if it stopped me from being oily.  *Sigh* one can only dream.

So ever since Coastal Scents came out with their version of HD Foundation, I've been intrigued. For months now, I've placed it in my check-out cart and taken it out a few times due to me trying to cut down on spending.  Honestly when it comes down to it, I REALLY don't need more liquid foundation.  Well, I went ahead and splurged last Friday during the weekend sale. ($50 was spent LOL!!).  See my 25% off Coastal Scents Haul.   I needed some extra items to make it to $50 so I could get free shipping soooo, I figured this would be the perfect time to throw in a few small items.  The samples cost $.50ea.  You really can't beat that.  At first I was going to get about 3 shades to see which ones would fit me the best and just in case I had to mix them.  Then I remembered, YouTube.  Duh!!  So after reading reviews on the colors that I felt would've been in my color range (numbers 9-13).  I started watching several video reviews on the HD foundation.

I decided to just get #11.  I saw several comments on the Coastal Scents website and a couple people on YouTube who said they wear NC45 in MAC and this was a great color for them.  Now of course there were a couple of people who also said this color was great for them but they wore NC44 to NC50.  That was a bit confusing but I decided oh well, it's $.50.  I'll take a chance.  I also saw a few comments and a couple of YouTube reviews in which the ladies said they wore anywhere from #173-#177 in MUFE.  I wear #173 in MUFE so I tried it out.

Boy am I glad I did.  I decided to just get 4 of the same color #11.  I made a great choice.  I absolutely love it.  Now this is something almost spectacular because there aren't a lot of liquid foundations that I'm fond of, especially to the point where I would say I love it.   See my post on my foundation exploration and journey.

Below I've captured my experience with my new foundation.  Before I label it as my absolute favorite, I will have to wear it out. We'll see exactly how long it lasts, how it works with my oiliness, and if it stays true to color.

This is the sample packet  It's 3g of product

I prefer to use pallets when using liquid and cream products

I used a flat synthetic foundation brush from Coastal Scents that I purchased last year.  It's really big and I love it

I started off with a small amount just to see how it would work

No lines.  It's a perfect match and it looks just like skin

You can see that I didn't have to use a lot to get good coverage

 I wanted to get the most out of my sample so I scraped up the remains and put it in a jar

This is a spatula that Jason a fellow MAC MUA gave me last year.  It's amazing.  I think he got it from Cinema Secrets

I squeezed the rest of the product from the packet into here

I got this jar in a set of two from Wal-mart for about $1 in the travel section

I love this powder. I'd use it everyday if it wasn't so expensive

This little travel size jar cost me $15.  Sheesh!

Had to conserve and not use too much

I used a large fluffy brush that I purchased from Coastal Scents last year.  It's really a wonderful powder brush and it's so soft.  

I didn't have to use a lot of this powder either

I'm very pleased with this purchase!!