CoverGirl NatureLuxe Foundation Review

Who doesn't love Taylor Swift? Okay, maybe a lot of people don't... but don't tell me you didn't nearly get sucked into believing this would make you look like her. Okay, maybe not that either, but anyway!

I picked this up for review and also because I heard that it was like a tinted moisturizer with more coverage. I'd say that's pretty accurate!

























You get 1oz (3mL) of product in what appears to be quite a small squeeze container. After further research, I realized that both MUFE HD and Mac Pro Longwear have only 1oz, and are a lot more expensive than this.

As for a price breakdown, it's difficult with this product because it's drugstore, but also because I think some kind of price cut happened from when it launched to now. I saw it at launch for anywhere from $12-$13.99 and now most stores are listing it at $10. I got it on sale from Rite Aid (40% off) for around $7-$8, I believe. Because of the size, whatever price you pay is how much you're paying per ounce. Average price is $10 per ounce.

The packaging is pretty -- white and green, and very spring like and fresh looking. The bottle is flattened and the product comes out through a squeeze tube that doesn't squirt out too much, surprisingly.























I picked up shade #310, called Flax, and it's a pretty good match for my skin.

Unfortunately CoverGirl doesn't offer shade descriptions on the bottle or even on their website, so in terms of picking a shade, you're in the dark. This is the second darkest shade, and through blogging research, I determined that the lightest was suitable for NC/NW 15 in Mac... hence why I picked the second darkest one. If you don't read my blog regularly, I'm about an NC20. On a positive note, they do offer a foundation color finder on their website, but it's a little bit pants to be honest because it doesn't match you to an actual shade.






















Left: Unblended
Right: Blended in

The foundation has a really lovely smell to it, sort of a flowery cucumber scent. As gross as that sounds, it's nice to have while applying and it definitely smells better than old makeup or bandaids (a common smell I've come across in foundation!). The scent doesn't hang around long, so no worries there.

I found that applying it with a brush garnered streaky results, and determined that using fingers was the best method. It blends like a dream into your skin... it really does. It has a light to medium coverage, but almost like a tinted moisturizer at the same time. It's lightweight like a TM and also has that dewy effect, but my freckles don't show through quite as much.

For the following pictures, I applied only the foundation... no concealer, powder, etc.
















































You can see the dewy glow it gives my skin. I think this is fantastic for spring and summer... it's a nice and light foundation. Very natural looking.
















































This is with concealer and setting powder (Mac MSF Natural in Light Medium), outdoor lighting. You can see that I have a bit of a line along my jaw. Some of that is blush but it's mostly the foundation. Flax is a bit orangey on my skin... it's not noticeable indoors or in shade but when you get out into full light, it's a little unnatural looking.

I don't feel like the slightly off color match is enough to make me give a thumbs down to this foundation, but I feel like it's sort of wrong that I'm having trouble finding the right shade. I'm not so pale that I need the lightest but apparently the next darkest is too orange. It's a bit offputting.

However, the biggest issue for me personally with this foundation is not the color match... I think the color oxidizing is caused by something else. Observe:
















































Yes, those are hives that you're seeing. I tested this foundation for a few weeks and around noon each time, my face would do this. The first two weeks I tested it were worse -- to the point I wanted to take it off and my face was itching like crazy. I wore the foundation two more times to post this and it wasn't as severe, but you can definitely see it.

I think the iffy color match is caused by my skin's reaction making it appear more red.

I don't know what caused the reaction, I've gone through the ingredients and nothing is jumping out at me. The ingredients are in other things I use on a daily basis. The only thing I can come up with is that because it has flower extracts, my skin is reacting to those. I have a hard time believing that such a miniscule amount would cause a reaction, though!

Anyway, my problems aside, this is a good foundation. It's clean feeling and not heavy at all. I would definitely recommend setting it with a powder as I found it doubles the wear time to about 7-8 hours.

Overall, approved for purchase with reservations if you have allergies/sensitive skin.