productreview – Beyond the Swatch

Hourglass Vanish Seamless Finish Foundation Stick Review!

August 26, 2016 1 Comment

Happy Friday, everyone!! I’m excited to review this product for you today!

Here are my thoughts on Hourglass Cosmetics Vanish Seamless Finish Foundation Stick (wow that was a mouthful)!

0813160811a_wm - Edited

One of the biggest reasons I was enticed by this product was the impressive range of shades that are available (26 total!). I’ve been seeing more and more cosmetic companies expanding their range of foundation and concealer shades to accommodate more skin tones and I’m LOVING it. Kudos to Hourglass Cosmetics for embracing the diversity of their customers! Check out all of the shades here.

Here are swatches of the lightest shade (Blanc), medium shade (Golden), and darkest shade (Espresso). At first swatch, this foundation felt super creamy and was impressively pigmented!

(Outside in natural light)

2016-08-25 21.47.59_wm

(Indoor lighting) 0811161854a-1_wm

First Impression

I have to admit, it was intimidating finding the right shade for myself because there were so many to choose from. One thing I like the most about the shades is that they take into consideration not just skintone but also undertone. For example, shade Ivory is described as “light medium, with a cool undertone” and shade Nude is a “light medium, with a neutral undertone”.

After receiving some advice from a Sephora beauty expert, I chose the shade Golden Tan (medium beige, warm undertone) which blended perfectly with my neck after we swatched it on my chin.

0813160815_wm

The product comes in shiny a triangle shaped tube and this is how much product you get (about 2-2.5 inches).

0813160819_wm

Application

You can use the Vanish Foundation Blush ($46) which is a soft bristled, tapered brush, about the size of a half dollar, or a damp beauty blender to apply this product.

Overall, this foundation was super easy to apply and I found that a little bit of product goes a long way!

I drew 2 lines across both my cheeks, one across my forehead, one down the bridge of my nose, and little dot on top of my lips, and a small line on my chin. And then blended this all out with a damp beauty blender.

My first impression after applying this on my face was a positive one! This foundation felt light, sheer, and really did seem to “vanish” as it blended in with my natural skintone. A lot of bloggers have mentioned that this foundation made their skin look airbrushed and flawless.

Lasting Impression

0813160814b_wm

This product is said to be a long wearing and waterproof foundation, lasting 12 hours. I’ve been using this foundation for about a week now and have been testing out it’s durability througout a mellow day (mostly indoors around the office and lounging at home), and it’s durability throughout a more hectic day (5 hours outdoors in the hot sun and the rest indoors).

Overall, the staying power of this foundation is impressive! The foundation unfortunately did start to fade on the oilier parts of my face (such as my nose) after about 5 hours. But any part of my face that I set with powder stayed pretty well throughout the day and upheld it’s seamless, satin finish.

However (yes unfortunately there is a “however”), I felt like the satin finish of the foundation made my skintone look flat and almost dry. I typically like a more of a dewy, hydrating look for all over my face.

I also found that this foundation was not buildable. It started to get a little cakey after I tried applying 2-3 more layers. I personally believe this would be best used as 1 sheer layer.

Conclusions

Pros

Range of 26 shades
Considers undertone
Easy to blend
Little product goes a long way
Seamless, airbrushed look
Lasts throughout the day when set with powder

Cons

A little pricey at $46
Not a lot of product
Not buildable
Product doesn’t last on oily parts of your face
Velvety finish can make your skin look flat

0813160823_wm

Would I buy it again?

Overall, the seamless look that you can achieve when using this product is really impressive, but I still prefer using liquid foundation over stick foundation. I personally think that this product would be great for contouring instead of applying it on your entire face. I would love to eventually buy a darker shade and use it to contour!

You can also use a hydrating liquid serum or primer like Ren Instant Firming Beauty Shot to mix with the product to change it’s consistency to feel more like a liquid foundation.

Now I want to hear from you!

Have you tried this foundation? What do you think?

Do you prefer liquid foundation or stick foundation? Why?

Are there any other foundations or concealers that you’ve seen have impressive range of shades?

8 - Edited

Contour Kit Swatch Comparison! Drugstore vs Highend

Hello everyone! Happy 4th of July weekend!! 🙂

I am EXTREMELY excited about the swatch comparison that I’ll be sharing with you all today! Not only do I get to share with you an AMAZING drugstore product that I recently discovered, but I’m also doing a swatch comparison of this drug store product vs a high end luxury product!

Let me present to you these amazing Wet n Wild MegaGlo Contour Palettes that I found at Target for $4.99 each!!

Dulce de Leche (left) and Caramel Toffee (right)

0604160757c - Edited (1)

My overall thoughts on this product!

The formula feels super creamy and velvety to the touch which makes it easy to apply and blend
Impressive pigmentation and color pay out
The bigger sized pans make it easy to pick up the product with a brush
Buildable color
Overall an impressingly high quality product for $4.99!

Swatch breakdown of the 2 contour kits!

IMG_20160702_155230

Caramel Toffee (top picture), Dulce De Leche (bottom picture)

The color payout and pigmentation of both kits are very impressive! I recommend Caramel Toffee for tan/darker skintones like myself (I’m shade NC42 in Mac foundation) and Dulce De Leche will work beautifully for lighter skintones and complextions! 🙂

The highlight shade in Caramel Toffee is a yellow banana color and works great for setting my under eye concealer and blends well with the golden undertones of my complextion. The highlighting shade in Dulce de Leche is a light off-white shade which would work great as a setting powder for lighter skintones!

I was pleasantly surprised and impresssed with both of the contour shades in Caramel Toffee and Dulce de Leche. The shade in Caramel Toffee was pigmented enough to use as a contour shade on my tan skin! A lot of contour shades or bronzers are so similar to my natural skin tone that I can’t use them for contouring but this shade is absolutely perfect.

The contour shade in Dulce de Leche is nice lighter cool-toned tan shade. I could use this as a light bronzer on my skintone but this would work best as a contour on lighter skintones. These colors are buildable and easy to blend. I apply as many layers as I want depending on how intense I want to contour that day.

Overall, Caramel Toffee worked the best with my skintone! I LOVE the shades that come in this palette! I’ve been using this duo for the past few weeks ever since I bought it and it has easily become a staple in my makeup collection. I’ll definitely replenish this kit when I run out!

Now it’s time to compare these shades with my first contour kit that I ever bought!!

Anastasia Beverly Hills Contour Kit ($40.00) vs. Wet n Wild MegaGlo Contour kit ($4.99 each)

Here are swatches of the bronze contouring shades from the Anastasia Palette vs the contouring shades of the Wet n Wild palettes!

The swatches of both kits were very similar in both color and pigmentation! Look at that! They’re like color twinsies. The top shades in these pictures are my favorites in both kits. This is a tie for me! All the shades in both palettes work really well with my skintone and the quality is excellent in both.

0618160955b - Edited 0618160952a - Edited

Swatches of the highlighting shades in the Anastasia Contour Kit and the Wet N Wild MegaGlo Contour kits!

As you can see from the swatches below, the bottom 2 shades of the highlighting kit in the Anastasia palette show up extremely lightly on my skin. The bottom one is nearly invisible! I have to blend both colors in order to make these shades work with my skintone to set my under eye concealer. I personally feel that the hightlighting shades in the MegaGlo palettes have a significantly better color pay out on my skintone than the Anastasia shades.

I bought my Anastasia palette when there was only 1 kit available. Now there are 2 new kits for medium-dark skintones! I’m looking forward to trying these in the future!

IMG_20160702_155135 0604160807d - Edited