The Too Faced Born This Way foundation has been getting quite a bit of hype lately with mixed reviews. Was I curious? Yeah I was! With big claims such as an ‘undetectable medium to full coverage’ and 100% of people (in a consumer study) said this foundation blurred imperfections, 98% said this foundation made their skin look absolutely perfect and 97% said the foundation provided natural coverage, who would NOT want to try the Too Faced Born This Way foundation?
Too Faced Born This Way Foundation
Let’s start with the packaging. The Too Faced Born This Way comes in a frosted glass bottle with cute gold detailing and a pump (yay!). Hygiene covered. I’ve not tried any other Too Faced bases in the past but I have quite a few of their powder products and while I’m generally impressed by the contents of these sometimes their packaging can be a little gimmicky. Not the case with this bottle, I find it quite luxe looking and not gimmicky at all. Not as luxe as some, but the bottle is a step up from what I would normally expect from Too Faced.
I picked up the foundation in the shade Nude which is a great match for me. Considering I matched myself based on online swatches I was pretty impressed. Go Me!
I’ve applied this foundation with fingers and also a Beauty Blender and both work pretty well. Obviously, the Beauty Blender sheers the product out a little while fingers provides a bit more coverage. I did try with a foundation brush but I found it quite hard to get a nice finish and went over with a blender in the end.
For my skin (combo – drier in some areas, prone to a little oiliness in others and areas of redness) I found the coverage to be definitely on the medium side. I don’t particularly like full coverage on myself and after applying two layers I would say I built this up to a good medium. Whether you could get to a ‘full coverage’ I’m a little skeptical. I do find that I don’t need to apply any concealer to cancel out any redness (bonus!) and I usually add just a little under eye concealer.
Let’s take a look at the claims. ‘100% of people claimed this product blurred imperfections’. In my opinion I think it certainly covers areas of redness exceptionally well. As far as pores go, I don’t feel the product works quite as well. I don’t have huge pores but I didn’t find it improved the look of them. It certainly didn’t make them worse…. but no better.
‘98% said the product made their skin look absolutely perfect’. Hmm. I don’t know who or how many people were involved in this study, but that’s a pretty humongous claim and I can’t imagine 98% of the women I know would claim their skin looked ‘absolutely perfect’ after a makeup application unless they already had amazing skin. I wouldn’t claim my skin looked ‘perfect’ but it did look improved on some points (redness) and the same on others (pores).
‘97% claimed this product provided natural coverage’. I tend to agree that the product has a natural finish and is neither matte nor dewy.
‘Undetectable Medium to Full Coverage’. Umm, no. Yes, the product covers really well and feels quite light weight but I would not go as far as to claim it is ‘undetectable’. I still look like I am wearing makeup. Not in a mask-like way, but yeah, I have makeup on and I can tell.
The claims are big and in my experience I can’t agree with them all but all in all I do quite like the foundation. It’s not the best thing since sliced bread as some would claim but I find the coverage it gives without the full on masking effect to be pretty nice.
My only real issue with this foundation is the lasting power. For a foundation that is ‘oil free’ and seems targeted towards those with combo-oily skin you would assume that oil control would be top of the agenda. I find the foundation seems to separate on my nose and chin areas after only about 5- 6 hours. I always powder these areas on initial application and I find I need to touch up quite often with the Born This Way foundation. But considering Too Faced has made no claim on whether this foundation is long wearing or not I am unsure if I may be expecting too much. The first few hours of wear are brilliant so this may be a foundation I reach for as more of an evening out or when I don’t need my face to last a full day. The lack of an SPF seems to suggest it may be more of an occasional base rather than an everyday.
If I had to give the foundation a rating out of 10…. for all the big claims and not quite living up to them, I’d still rate it at 8/10. The lasting power is really the only thing I have a major issue with. But I’ll continue to have a play with it and experiment with primers or different powders.
Have you tried Too Faced Born This Way? Is it a foundation that interests you?
The Too Faced Born This Way Foundation is now available in 12 shades at Mecca Maxima in Australia and at Sephora in the States.
