Review: CoverGirl Natureluxe Liquid Silk Foundation

I received this CoverGirl Natureluxe Liquid Silk Foundation free through BzzAgent as part of CoverGirl’s word of mouth advertising campaign.  I purposely held off on reviewing it during that time because, frankly, I don’t like this foundation at all.

Despite being CoverGirl, whom I tend to dislike because everything breaks my skin out (and I am not comfortable with their business practices either), I was excited to try this because it had gotten good reviews from a few bloggers I like to read.  I knew whatever color BzzAgent sent had a very small chance of actually matching my skin, but I figured I’d wear it around the house and if I liked the finish and quality, I could always pick my own color at CVS.

To date, there has been exactly one product I’ve liked from CoverGirl, and that’s the Lash Blast mascara.  This foundation did nothing to change my mind about the company.  Firstly, it mentions that “hint of jojoba extract and cucumber water, give flawless, luxurious coverage with a barely there feel”.  I had expected to see the cucumber and jojoba far down on the ingredients list, which is what most companies do when jumping on the “natural green” bandwagon.  Surprisingly, they’re pretty close to the top- cucumber water is third after the active ingredients, and jojoba is about halfway down.  Still, neither of these did anything to give a “barely there feel”.  I felt this foundation.  In fact, I felt it in a way I usually don’t feel foundation!  I would say this feels more like a heavier BB cream- I applied this to one half of my face and did the other half in Skinfood Aloe BB cream and couldn’t tell a difference in feel/weight once it was blended.

This foundation has a very strong scent.  It’s a “perfumey” scent that is so synthetic and strong that I wonder what it is meant to cover up.  Something that strong was added for a reason; I can’t think of a single foundation I’ve tried that is so strongly scented.  Again, this reminds me very much of Skinfood Aloe, even though the scents are not similar.  The smell did not dissipate once applied, so I kept catching the scent for almost an hour after application.  My husband also remarked on the scent.  Fail.  Total, all-around fail.  I do not want people noticing the smell of my makeup.  Ugh.

The finish wasn’t bad.  It started out rather sticky feeling, but as it was blended turned into the silky feel promised in the product information.  It smoothed out and looked pretty without being streaky, and settled into a not-quite-matte finish.  The color, of course, was a complete disaster on my skin, but I expected that.  (I was sent 330 Chamois.  From the website, I think I’d be a 305 Alabaster.) I had expected this foundation to be sheer coverage after reading all the copy that was sent with it, and was surprised to see that it was at least medium coverage, which explains the weight a little better.  This covered most of the flaws on my skin, and a little concealer evened out the dark circles under my eyes.  (Of course, I was totally orange.  I was rocking ganguro face!  I was expecting the UPS man to show up; he always knocks when I’m testing makeup.  To his credit, he never asks why I have on lopsided makeup or why my arm is rainbow striped.  Bless his heart.)  It wore decently for a drugstore foundation.  I got 4-5 hours out of it before it became clear that I needed to reapply.  And here is where my biggest problem with this foundation comes up.  When I say “became clear that I needed to reapply”, I mean this.  One minute the foundation looked nice.  The next, it looked gross.  It happened that fast.  It separated with astonishing speed, and it wasn’t just a few patchy areas here and there.  The whole face looked blotchy.  Sometimes, when this happens with other products, rubbing gently tends to smooth the product back into the skin, but not this time.  It was reapplication or nothing.  This is probably because my skin is oily, but eeeew.  I’ve got no eloquence for what happened.  It was straight up yuck, gross, grotty, ew, disgusting, blech, gnarly, nasty, UGH.

Oh, and it broke me out, to boot.

Will I be buying my own CoverGirl Natureluxe Liquid Silk Foundation?  Not on your life.  Other people love it- they probably don’t have the oily, acne-prone skin I do, because it does have a lovely finish and would most likely work well for someone with drier skin.  But on me it was a total, complete, unmitigated, perfumed disaster.  Read on for photos.