Kiehl's Actively Correcting & Beautifying BB Cream: Review, Swatch, and FOTD

Kiehl's has launched a new BB cream - the Actively Correcting & Beautifying BB Cream. While BB creams are no stranger to the market, and are starting to feel to me like a marketing fad that has overstayed its welcome (I've actually previously blogged about how BB creams mis-market themselves), nevertheless, it is good to see that even though I have a "meh" attitude to most of the BB creams on the market, along comes a BB cream that does manage to impress me on multiple counts. And so, I took it upon myself to share it with you guys!

BB/CC Creams Hype vs Ingredients: Do They Actually Work?

BB creams have been a steady trend that's been going strong for the past few years, and the trend has even been exported from Asia to the West. A lot of these BB creams make very outlandish claims that are not always backed up by their ingredients list, so I thought I'd write a post on what exactly BB creams are, as opposed to how they are marketed. Because, you know, you can't always trust the marketing!

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Part One: What are BB/CC creams? Why do they have so much hype?

First, what is a BB cream? Why is it getting so much hype? Well, a lot of this is due to the marketing that goes behind these creams. They look like tinted moisturizer or foundation in tubes, but the marketing that accompanies these products is often crazily hyperbolic. Often BB creams promise a myriad of skincare benefits all at once (the most common combination is typically whitening, anti-wrinkle, and UV protection), which leads to the perception that these creams are good for your skin. CC creams also promise similar benefits - they're really just souped up BB creams, if you will.

Some of my non-Asian readers may not be as familiar with BB creams, so let me show you how crazy the hype and advertising can be, by looking at some of these ads. I kid you not, they do promise everything and the kitchen sink:


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Above, your usual "whitening, anti-wrinkle, and UV protection" spiel. Below, a BB cream that promises to "supply moist and nutritional contents to keep smooth skin tone". I'm not too sure if "nutritional" is the right word...I mean, you don't exactly eat BB cream. Sure, what you put on your skin does affect the condition of your skin, but your skin doesn't really absorb nutrients in the same way that your stomach does, so you can't really supply nutrition to your skin this way. In fact, most of the time, the function of the skin is to act as a barrier between the environment and your innards, and keep germs and other nasties out.


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More "triple functional" BB creams, with the usual "whitening, anti-wrinkle, and UV protection" spiel. Many of them, in fact. This one below has some sort of snail extract, which is supposed to have extra skincare benefits. Now I believe you shouldn't knock something til you've tried it, but I can't help thinking that it's just a bit gross. Snails = gross, slimy creatures. Do not want on face!

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And this one below, besides your typical "whitening, anti-wrinkle, and UV protection" sales message, there is also some anti-pimple skincare promise too ("zero trouble").

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Contributing to the hype is the fact that some BB cream brands advertise themselves as having natural or organic ingredients, thus furthering the marketing story. As an example, this one below has "15 natural extracts an nutritious ingredients" for "added skincare benefits". Once again, I'm not sure exactly how BB cream (or any makeup product for that matter) can be nutritious to your skin.

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Of course, now that Western brands have jumped on the bandwagon, they're no different. 8-in-1 skincare benefits? Really? Sheesh.



Part Two: Why write a post on BB creams?

Now that we're all on the same page on BB creams and what they are, the reason why I decided to write this post is because I feel like given the disproportionate amount of beauty claims these creams are making, most of these BB creams don't actually live up to the hype. In fact, some can actually aggravate acne and sensitive skin.

L'Oreal Lucent Magique Foundation, BB Cream, Concealer Swatches

L'Oreal has launched the Lucent Magique range, consisting of foundation, BB cream, and concealer. The Lucent range of products claims to give you a dewy, flawless glowing canvas that looks like you have no makeup on. It's a way to get that lit-from-within Korean pop star look that's been pretty popular in Asia lately. And, I've got swatches!

First, let's start with the foundation, the L’Oreal Lucent Magique Light Infusing Foundation. In Singapore, we get 6 shades, in a mix of undertones. The shade names start with R, G, and N - R (Rosy) denotes pink-toned shades, G (Gold) denotes warm shades, and N (Neutral) is for neutral undertones. Part of the selling point is also that the Lucent foundations have light-reflecting pigments to give your skin a dewy look.

L-R: G7, G4, R2, N7, N5, N2

G7 is a deep, warm-toned shade.
G4 is a medium, warm shade.
R2 is a fair shade, around the same lightness as N2, but it's pinker than N2.
N7 is a deep neutral shade, less yellow than G7 but comparable otherwise.
N5 is a medium neutral shade.
N2, which I think is closest to my skin (MAC NC20), is a neutral light beige.

The foundation has a lightweight texture that dries quickly. During the demonstration, the makeup artist explained that for such a quick-drying foundation, the dot-and-blend method may not be as effective as the foundation would dry too fast. Instead, she applied it evenly to sections of the face with a foundation brush and blended instead. We were shown the "CCTV technique" - apply the foundation in a C shape on both cheeks, a T on T-zone, and a V on the chin. To set, she lightly dusted over the foundation with the L'Oreal True Match powder.

The L'Oreal Lucent range also consists of a primer and BB cream, as well as two shades of concealer. Let's start off with the Lucent Magique Pure Light Primer and Lucent Magique Skin Illuminating BB Cream. Both come out of their tubes as white creams. The BB Cream is supposed to blend into your natural skin shade upon application. The primer comes out a white, light liquid with shimmer. The BB cream was a little thicker in texture and more gritty.


Lastly, the Lucent Magique Pure Light Touch-up Pen. This is pretty multi-purpose too; in addition to being used as a concealer, the makeup artist also used it as a eyeshadow primer/lid brightener to good effect. There are two shades, Light, and Fair. A handy tip given to us was to use the concealer on the brow, cheek bone, and a dot at the sides of lips for a brightening effect.


Light is a pink-toned light beige.
Fair is also a light beige, but more yellow.

I've always thought L'Oreal was one of the better drugstore brands for foundation, due to the good shade range and aesthetic elegance of the products. The Lucent Magique range hasn't changed my mind - the foundation is lightweight and covers well, and comes in realistic skintone shades. If you're looking for a high-end foundation on a drugstore budget, this is worth trying.

Shills Disco BB Whiten Conceal Disk Swatch

Shills is a Taiwanese brand very much engaged in Asian beauty as far as its products are concerned - there's a whole slew of BB creams, and other products including various types of skincare, such as moisturizers, and products to clean up the gunk in your pores. Today's quick entry is a swatch of their Disco BB Whiten Conceal Disk Swatch.

The Shills Disco BB Whiten Conceal Disk is a BB cream that has a rather thick emollient texture, and is thicker than most BB creams. It doesn't come in a tube, like most BB creams. Instead it comes in pan form (hence the name Disk). The packaging sort of looks like the Max Factor Pan-Cakes, if anyone still remembers those.

The colour of the Shills Disco BB Whiten Conceal Disk is very peach leaning, and swatching it, I felt like it felt very silicone-y - it had that characteristic silicone slip and feel. It eventually blends to a dry finish, and does not have any shimmer or glitter. On my NC20 skin, it looked a little bit peachier than my skin, but would probably blend better if sheered out more.

Maybelline Pure Mineral BB Mousse Review/Swatch/FOTD

Since BB creams were introduced a few years back, it looks like the BB trend is still going strong, and consumers remain eager to snap up more BB-themed products. With that in mind, Maybelline's latest BB-themed product, the Pure Mineral BB Mousse SPF30, is sure to be a hit.

For those not familiar with BB creams, this was the product that started off the whole BB trend. BB creams were Blemish Balms (BB), touted to provide coverage as well as skincare benefits. In practice, a lot of BB creams I've come across are similar to creamy foundations and thick tinted moisturizers, right down to the ingredients (I need to do a post on the ingredients in BB creams sometime, but I'll probably get slammed for it). Hence I've been very skeptical of the "BB" label - like the words "mineral" and "natural", to me it's just marketing spiel to sell products. And as with supposedly "natural" or "mineral" products, the wild claims made by some brands have made me, and other consumers, I'm sure, tired of the whole BB label altogether.

Fortunately Maybelline is smart enough to put a new twist on an old product. The selling point of the Pure Mineral BB Mousse (wow, two marketing keywords here - BB and mineral) is not so much that it's a BB product, although there are some skincare claims made, but rather that it's a mousse. The mousse is supposed to lend a lightweight texture and feel to the product, and is supposed to be easy to apply too. Sounds like a winner, right?

The Pure Mineral BB Mousse is dispensed through a can bottle with a pump top. It can be a bit tricky to control how much product comes out of the pump (there were a couple of times where I wanted a small dollop and I got lots of foam by pressing too hard), but otherwise, this is convenient and sanitary to use.



This is what the Pure Mineral BB Mousse looks like when first dispensed. It's a huge big dollop of foam! Although it's somewhat similar to Shu Uemura UV Under Base Mousse, in that both are foam products, the novelty value on the Pure Mineral BB version is still quite high. I mean, the foam looks fun, right?



I have to admit, when I first saw that foam, I was wondering, how am I supposed to apply this to my face? Do I just smoosh the entire dollop of foam on my face and rub? Do I apply the foam bit by bit to my face? Do I use my fingers? Do I use a brush? Man, using this foam product was harder than I thought! But eventually I found that fingers worked best, and because the foam dries fast, whether you are using a large dollop or a small dollop, it's better to work on your face in sections (e.g. forehead first, then right cheek, left cheek, nose, etc).

Here's a swatch of what the product looks like. It actually dries pretty fast upon application, and dries out to a pretty matte finish, without any shimmer or glitter. It blends out decently with my skin, especially if using a thin layer. Although the product itself is slightly more orangey and darker than my actual NC20 skintone, I found that with a bit of blending, the colour match isn't too bad. Another thing is that because this product dries matte, it does have a tendency to settle into fine lines and creases, and the effect worsens the more product is used (my under eye area didn't look too good with this product). So if you have fine lines, be careful not to pile it on!



To me, the really tricky part of using the Maybelline Pure Mineral BB Mousse was really the application. The mousse itself is pretty blendable, but once it dries, it doesn't really blend very well, so I found it best to work quickly while the mousse was still wet to get an even coat, if not the result could look patchy. But overall, I didn't have any problems with application. I found that the finish was pretty matte, which is to my preference. Here's a shot of me wearing the Maybelline BB Mineral Mousse. As you can ese, it blended into my skin just fine. I was worried the colour match would be off, but it turned out alright.



Weartime on this was also pretty decent. I found that if I perspired alot, some of the mousse on my skin would rub off unevenly, and end up looking patchy, and it's hard to fix the patchiness after that (I mean, what am I supposed to do? Put on more mousse? Cover it up with powder?). But otherwise, if I wasn't running around, I found this quite good, as it stayed on my skin and didn't move or shift. I found that if I set it with a bit of transparent loose powder, the staying power is actually quite impressive. I wore it out for half a day, and by the end of the day, mhy T-zone started looking a little oily, but the other parts of my face were fine.

All in all, I quite like this product, but I wouldn't wear it if I knew I was going to be in for a time where I would be sweating a lot. If you have a lot of fine lines, the Mineral BB Mousse may also settle into them. But if you want a matte finish foundation that has good staying power (as long as you aren't sweating), this is a good bet. The mousse foam is really cute, too, and the novelty factor is really quite fun. I think Maybelline has just found their next big hit!

(Product was sent for review. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company.)