With the Fenty effect happening all over beauty right now — high end, mid range, budget — you can literally walk into any beauty department and find a plethora of foundation shades.
It’s incredible! We’re living in amazing times, people. Revolutionary even! Still, I can’t help but wonder how often people actually find shades that exactly match their skin tone.
Do you still mix and match multiple shades? Have you actually found anything lately that perfectly matches your skin tone? If so, does it make you wiggle and giggle ’cause you’re so blown away!? ?
(Sorry, I hang out with a toddler so I say things like that.)
Has the Fenty effect personally affected you? Have the broader ranges of foundation and concealer shades changed your world? Is it easier for you to walk into a Sephora or Ulta and find a perfect match? I would really like to know, because I still end up mixing, matching and tweaking.
Let me know in the comments! I’m really, REALLY curious.
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
It’s hard for me to find a match and it feels like too much work and I worry about wasting $ on the wrong shades so I’ve just opted out. At my friend’s wedding she hired a makeup artist to do our makeup. And the makeup artist had a hard time finding the right shade! She redid my foundation I think 3 times. And she was Latina like me! I know some stores have that handheld device they hold up to your skin to determine your makeup shade. they used it on me when I was at at Estee Lauder event. I wrote down the foundation that matched even though I didn’t buy it. I figured it would be a good starting point. I have light brown skin with olive/yellow undertones. Like a less cool JLo. ?
There have only been 2 foundations in my life that were perfect. The first was Bobbi Brown’s Luminous foundation when it first came out. Then, of course they changed the formula which changed the color. The second is my new Dior Forever Skin Glow foundation. I wear 1.5N, and it is absolutely perfect. I hate paying that much for foundation, but it is so perfect that I can justify it. It will crush me if it’s discontinued or changed!
I hope this Fenty effect arrives soon in Brazil! We have a huge number of different skins colours, but usually seven or eight colours of foundations…
Hi Karen, I love the Sephora foundation match system, where they color match your skin; they give you a card with your skintone number, which they enter into their computer and it tells them the correct shade of any of the foundations they have in their system. They color-matched me for Tarte Peaches & Cream and Benefit Hello Happy foundations, and they were both dead-on. Once you have your skintone number, anytime you want to try a new foundation, you can just have them look it up in the system and they can tell you which shade you will be. It saves alot of time and guesswork, and it seems to be pretty accurate. Loreal True Match Foundation is the first drugstore foundation that I was actually able to find a perfect match, and I think it is as good as many of the high-end foundations.
Yes, the wider range of colors has been wonderful for me. It used to be unbelievably hard to find a foundation light enough, with the right undertones. It would either be too dark or close to the right shade, but too yellow. Clinique would come through for me sometimes, but then they’d change their formula and I’d have to start all over again.
Now I have multiple brands that have the perfect shade: Benefit Happy, Laura Mercier, Dior Backstage, Fenty, Kat Von D.
Still searching 🙁 I am so happy about all the expanded options, but haven’t found a great shade match with Fenty or other lines with a wide range of colors. I tried the Sephora color match and I think maybe it didn’t take because all of the picks were way too light. I use Bare Minerals because I think it’s easier to cheat a shade that isn’t 100% perfect with powder foundation, but I’ll never stop hunting for a creamy, radiant foundation that perfectly matches my skin tone!
I’m crazy pale and ridiculously pink-toned, which has made buying foundations & concealers difficult all my life, but yes, the recent boom in truly wide color ranges has started to pay off.
I recently picked up the Revolution Conceal & Define in C0.5, and it is a perfect match for me, at a very affordable price.
I’ve been so happy about this! When I used to work at the cosmetics counter it made me so sad to see the extremely limited shades in some brands – lookin at you Chanel! Whatever struggles people my shade have, that doesn’t compare to what folks with more melanin experience. I’ve benefitted from more fair shades in more undertones but it is not the same.
I never really struggled with the selection in stores, given that I am a pale-ish, but not overly pale blonde. I do mix and match sometimes, but if I am honest, that is mostly for fun.
I am well aware though that this is a privilege, so I embrace the Fenty effect – even if that only means that you have more options to pick from when you start mixing and matching.
I am not personally affected by it but I think it’s fabulous that there are so many more choices for all!
The Fenty effect totally has affected me. Fenty foundation was the first time I had two shades matched to my face, and they both look equally good. I’m basically the same shade as you Karen, and even I have had so much trouble getting proper shade matches or color correcting suggestions from makeup artists. Not only are the shade options better in terms of depth and undertone, but I think makeup artists are getting much better at doing makeup on a wider range of skintones because of the Fenty effect. It’s about time!
Depending on the brand, I wear fair or light and rarely have a problem finding a color match. However, I had Fenty color matched at two locations and they both said I would need to mix two shades. Seemed odd I couldn’t find an exact match with so many shades.
Yes, this has been super helpful to me. I’m NC44-45 depth, but have struggled for years to find the right undertone because my skin runs slightly olive. I’m a G80 in Cover FX Power Play and Y445 in MUFE. While I don’t have a great match in Fenty, there are lots of other brands now that likely have my correct depth *and* undertone. I was even able to convince Kosas to release a Tinted Face Oil shade between 7 and 8 with a golden undertone that would expand their shade range.