I have been on the hunt for a decent lightweight foundation for a while now. For years I have battled with problem skin, having suffered with severe acne ever since I was about 12 years old. I spent years caking heavy products onto my face just to attempt to cover the “mountain range” (named by people who bullied me for my skin as a teenager).
Now at the age of 24 and after countless trips to the doctors, courses of antibiotics, prescriptions of the pill, topical treatments and skincare products I have finally reached a stage where I am (fairly) happy with my skin. I don’t really get huge flair ups of spots anymore, just the odd one or two here and there, which I can totally cope with after the amount I have had over the last 10+ years.
In my teenage years and even up until about 2 years ago I always chose the thickest, fullest coverage foundation I could find. Once my skin started to clear up I decided to give it the break it deserved, and moved to tinted moisturiser – I found a Natural Collection one from Boots which was an absolute steal at £1.99 and I actually really enjoyed wearing it, especially in the summer.
Now the weather seems to be turning I wanted more of a foundation than a tinted moisturiser. I have to admit I didn’t find this product through tons of research, I happened to be waiting for a friend at a train station and decided to kill time in the Urban Decay store. The lady who worked there saw me looking at this product and offered to try it on my skin to see if it colour matched, and all day afterwards I kept looking at my skin and liked how the product looked… so I went back later and bought it! It was a little pricier than I was hoping to pay (£28.50), however through wearing it I believe that it’s worth it.
I have been wearing this foundation for a few weeks now and I have really grown to love it. I am the palest shade they do (0.5), but the colour is perfect for me – that’s another thing I have always struggled with, finding a foundation that is pale enough!
The coverage is fuller than I was expecting, but perhaps that’s because I have been wearing tinted moisturiser for quite a while now, so I was used to extremely low-coverage. I definitely wouldn’t say my skin looks “naked” though as the name would suggest. I have been applying it with the Real Techniques foundation brush and it dries to a sort-of-matte satin. It feels lovely and really doesn’t feel like I have much on at all. This foundation will still be perfect for when I do have more problematic-skin days too.
I am overall extremely happy with this foundation and would recommend it, my advice would be to shake the bottle before applying. I have also heard that Urban Decay is a cruelty-free brand which also makes me feel good about my choice to shop with them.
Can anyone recommend any other super-pale foundations?
Other products used in this post:
Urban Decay Naked Skin Foundation in shade 0.5
Collection Lasting Perfection Concealer in shade 1
Natural Collection Powder Blush in shade pink cloud
Benefit They’re Real Mascara
Sleek Face Contour Kit in shade Light
Clarins Instant Light Natural Lip Perfector in shade 01 Rose Shimmer
Soap & Glory Supercat Eyeliner Pen
Hourglass Modernist Eyeshadow Palette in shade Monochrome
Liz Cage 