Illamasqua Skin Base - my thoughts

So there have been a lot of posts about the brand spanking new Skin Base Foundation from Illamasqua so I'm not going to go into great detail about it, but for the benefit of those who've not heard anything about it it here's the low down.

So Skin Base is Illamasqua's take on the cult Beauty Balm Creams so popular in Asia. It professes to be easily blendable and to create a perfect complexion... as well as providing your base it smoothes, softens and conditions your skin while proving natural, buildable coverage. It can be used as a primer, concealer or foundation and is available in 18 shades, and retails at £25 for 30mls as of now.

Now I was sent three shades to try. 05, 06 and 07.

And this was a little problem for me. 07 was far to dark for my skin.  05 was a good match for my skin, but when applied all over my face I looked pale as a ghost... which left me with 06... which was a good match and at first looked perfect....more on that shortly.

I didn't find this terribly buildable but generally speaking I did like the finish, it was natural and glowy, certainly no dull finish with this stuff but as the hours progressed I found it started to look a bit patchy and a bit orangey on me...as if I'd applied the wrong colour only in some places of my face, and badly at that! I persevered and  tried applying with fingers, brushes, on primer, without primer, setting with powder, without powder.... it all ended up the same... the other problem I had was one that is almost certainly to do with me and not the product is the horrible clumping and patchiness on my nose. I recently mentioned it in my Shiseido review and I didn't manage to get any photographs but Lipglossing appears to have the same problem as me and I couldn't beat her pictures, so go take a look... this is a problem I have with LOADS of foundations, the ones that don't really do it are powders or heavy foundations, anything light causes me clumping and flakiness on my nose, even if the flakiness isn't apparent without foundation on.

So...Skin Base... it's not for me sadly but some reviewers have loved it. Like Lipglossiping I'd recommend trying before you buy.

Available in store or from http://www.illamasqua.com/.

Pin It