The Bare Minerals Blemish Ready Foundation ($28.00) seemed like it was a great choice for me. I still have acne-prone skin that happens to love salicylic acid… I thought this would be a great alternative to those days where I don’t want to wear a full-coverage foundation. The idea of this foundation got me excited about wearing “next to no” foundation. Plus, the color Clearly Espresso was a good match for my skin tone. But there was one thing I hadn’t considered: my oily ass skin.
The foundation is housed in a flat, plastic jar that screws off. Once the container is opened, there is a mesh covering where I would dip my powder brush on to apply the foundation. The first layer goes on semi-sheer but can be built to full-coverage.
The first time I wore this foundation, I thought I could look past the mid-day separation anxiety it got. After wearing it a few more times, I knew there was no way I could avoid the problem any longer. My oily skin could not put up with this foundation by 2pm. Even with sunscreen and primer, this foundation just could not handle the commitment it had to make to my skin and split. Literally. So much separation, I either had to remove the foundation or try to retouch, which didn’t really work well.
The interesting part is that on the Sephora website, there is some detail about a case study involving 105 women, in which 100 of those women experienced decreased sebum production. Significant decreased sebum production. Perplexing. This was definitely not the case for me. My oily skin fought and won that battle. Perhaps the five women that did not experience a decrease in sebum were women with oily skin? I don’t know but from the reviews, definitely YMMV.
So… my vote on this foundation is if you have oily skin and don’t usually have time to do retouches throughout the day, this foundation is not for you. Dry skin and normal skin beauties may love this, though. I can’t comment on the salicylic and tea tree acne-fighting ingredients, but I do love the idea of skin care ingredients in foundations; it’s what made me choose the Blemish Ready Foundation over the Matte one, which I have tried and already like. This one was close, but no cigar.
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