Foundation is hands-down the most important part of any makeup look.
The perfect match means you set yourself up to serve flawless face. Mismatched foundation, which is way easier to end up with than I'd like it to be, can throw shade on your entire look.
These days, it's easier than ever to find your perfect foundation match — there are skin-reading devices at makeup counters, shade-finding apps, and personalized mixing services. But until recently, all this technology hasn't been a lot of help for people with deeper skin tones.
It doesn't matter if an app tells me what Pantone shade my skin is if few brands make foundation dark enough to match me.
But times have changed — ahem, Fenty Beauty, anyone? — so I wanted to see how accurate shade-matching is NOW. I went to two different beauty counters to see how well their technology and customer service would work to color-match for my oily, deep brown skin.
My first visit was to the Color IQ test station at Sephora.
The Sephora employees used this special camera to take close-up photos of my chin, neck, and cheek.
I was expecting a long process, but the experience was rather quick.
As soon as the Sephora employee submitted the skin color photos, the results popped up instantly on the station's tablet.
There were 58 different liquid foundation results. My shade ID? "2R13."
The tablet offered me the option to email the selections to myself, which I did.
Since I have oily skin, particularly in my T-zone, I knew that liquid foundation may not be best for me — but the Sephora employee that I was working with insisted that liquid options look better on deeper skin tones, and that I could find one that balanced my oiliness.
She suggested the Kat Von D Lock-It foundation in shade Deep 78.
Deep 78 ($35, Sephora) is a foundation with neutral undertones. "It will give you the best coverage," said the Sephora employee.
She swatched it on my skin, then blended it in. I'm not sure if it was the bright Sephora lights or what, but I felt like the foundation matched my skin perfectly. I bought it, and couldn't wait to test it out the next morning.
And this is what the Lock-It foundation looked like during my commute to work, half an hour after I had freshly applied it. The foundation did NOT control the oil on my face.
The photo on the left is one I took when I arrived at my train station after a 15-minute walk from my house. The selfie on the right is of me just stepping out of the train station after an hour-long commute.
Even with my front-facing camera, it's easy to tell that my face is shiny AF, even though I was sitting down most of the train ride with the air blowing.
That isn't highlight, people — just my oily skin being the star of the show once again.
Another 15-minute walk and I was at the Revelist office, ready to take an official portrait with our photographer — and I was really uncomfortable.
The Deep 78 foundation had not been on my face for more than three hours, and I was already feeling super uncomfortable about my look. The shine wasn't *so* bad, but the foundation didn't match my neck AT ALL. I felt like I had paint sitting on my face.
By 4:30 pm, the foundation looked — and felt — even worse.
I wiped this foundation off of my face as soon as the camera finished flashing. Normally, I would wear my foundation all the way home, but honestly, I didn't feel comfortable making the commute with this on my face. The foundation had mixed with the oil on my skin and it felt like my face was melting. The color didn't match my skin tone and I'd rather not wear makeup at all if it felt and looked like this.
Overall, the high-tech foundation matching experience at Sephora was really easy — but the results weren't great.
The Sephora employee who assisted me seemed to have her own ideas about what looked best for dark skin, even though I told her what works for me. The Color IQ technology was really cool, but at the end of the day, it has to be paired with good customer service — and that includes staff who understand makeup for darker skin tones.
Dark-skinned women are left out so often in the beauty industry, but the last place I'd expect to have nobody understand foundation for my skin is... in a makeup store.
I was hoping that my next foundation-matching experience might be better.
Next I went old school, and headed to the MAC store. Instead of complicated technology, a trained makeup artist on staff listened to me talk about my skin, did a manual swatch test, and immediately found me the perfect shade.
This is how the 8.5 looked when I wore it to work in the morning.
SHINE GONE, PEOPLE!!! It also matches better with my neck, although it still isn't perfect.
*does the bounce*
I was seriously so happy — it has been a struggle to find a foundation that works for my skin tone, minimizes shine, and also provides full coverage. I was afraid of liquid foundations because of my skin's oiliness — but this MAC foundation took care of ALL of that.
By the afternoon, this is how the MAC foundation looked with no touch-ups.
There's still a lot of shine going on, but this foundation more closely matched my skin's color — and didn't feel like a whole other layer of skin sitting on my face. A touch-up or two throughout the day would have eased the shine completely.
Not only did the MAC foundation matching experience leave me with a beautiful result, I also felt a lot better about my experience.
The artist who shade matched me seemed very aware of the MAC products, but she also treated me like a person and listened to what I had to say about MY skin.
While I don't have a four-digit skin tone number now, I *do* have a foundation that matches me and that I feel good wearing. That's way more important.
Overall, I'd say the Color IQ test at Sephora could still be helpful as long as the employees are knowledgeable about makeup for deeper skin tones (which they should be), and don't depend on automated results to do all of the work for them.
MAC won this round, hands down.
If you do opt to try the Color IQ test, hopefully you have a much better experience than I did.
Handle it, Sephora.
