SKIN BASE: THE REVIEW
It’s been a while since I tried a new base that I genuinely felt could become a staple for me. The Illamasqua Skin Base is a foundation I’ve heard so many people rave about but for some reason I assumed it would be too heavy and cakey for me – I don’t know where I got that assumption from.
Illamasqua is one of those brands, a bit like Benefit, where I feel that their marketing doesn’t reflect the brand that well and has slightly confused who the audience should be with who it actually is. Someone like my mum would never use Illamasqua products because of how it’s marketed and displayed but actually, I think she’d love the products.
The Skin Base is one of the three foundations they have. It’s their most lightweight offering that promises to be “easily bendable and suitable for most skin types”. The website says it “smooths, softens and conditions thanks to skin boosting Vitamin C and E”. It comes in a really handy, lightweight tube which I love and offers an amazing 33 shades! Illamasqua also do a white so that you can mix your own shade if you need to.
The formula definitely packs a punch in terms of the glow factor. I feel like most foundations that I wear have to meet the glow criteria, as a dry skin girl, I need that glow! So it’s definitely glowy but not in the same way the YSL Touche Eclat foundation is or the Charlotte Tilbury Light Wonder Foundation, it reminds me of the Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk. It has really decent coverage, in fact sometimes it’s a little too much coverage for me. I wore this foundation throughout our entire Germany trip so if you watch this vlog you can see it on my skin. In the evenings I wore it alone and it was perfect but during the day I mixed it with the Estee Lauder CC Cream making it more of a tinted moisturiser and I loved the finish. I feel like this foundation really allows you to experiment and mix with other products. You can apply it in sections like a concealer, mix with a cream for a lighter coverage or buff it into the skin alone for a flawless base.
After the Illamasqua makeup artist matched me with a ghostly pale colour – I had a “is that really my real skin tone?!” moment – I ended up going for the one up, shade 6.5 which is labelled as “olive yellow undertone”.
This seems to be my choice of foundation at the moment and I’m glad I finally gave it a go as it definitely now has a permanent home in my foundation drawer! Have you tried the Skin Base before? What’s your verdict?
