Liz Earle has launched the Sheer Skin Tint, their first foray into colour makeup! I'm sure you've heard all about this already, as it's been receiving quite a lot of attention over the blogosphere over the past month. For a first-time effort into the infinitely complicated colour market, I'm pretty impressed, and I feel that the product is a pretty great all-rounder in terms of performance. While not all Liz Earle products may work for everyone, as with all brands, you can't deny the effort that the brand puts into maintaining product quality.
As always with Liz Earle, the packaging is sleek, minimalist, pretty, and very functional. I've had quite a few Liz Earle products in my time, and I don't think I've ever met one with a packaging that made me think, "Man, this is stupid." This comes in a slim, dark navy blue tube, with a nozzle at the end to dispense the product in small-ish beads at a time. Convenient and sanitary.
I've been a little bit slower in my post on these, because I wanted to get in all three shades in before I started reviewing the Sheer Skin Tints. You know I'm all about swatches, so I simply had to swatch all three shades for you guys, and I hope these swatches helps someone who is shopping online for the right shade! So here are the swatches. These are swatched pretty heavily on my arm so you can clearly see the differences between the three shades:
L - R: Bare 01, Beige 02, Beach 03
Bare 01 is the lightest shade, and is a beige shade that leans a tad pink. It's not too pink, though, and as you can see, it blends in quite well into my NC20 arm, although it's not quite the same colour as my arm - it's a little bit more pink than that. I'm guessing that if you were around my shade, this may be the best choice.
Beige 02 is a beige that's a shade darker and yellower than Bare. It's a warm leaning shade - I'm going to guess maybe NC25-30 may be around this shade.
Beach 03 is the darkest of all the shades, and is essentially a yellow leaning tan. This would be the obvious choice for girls who are too dark for either Bare or Beige.
Now I did pile on the Skin Tints for the swatches. In reality, they are actually pretty sheer, and my guess is that unless you're very fair, most girls would probably find that either Beige or Bare would probably work well for them. I've done another set of swatches of the Sheer Skin Tints, applying them more normally as you might on your face, just to give you some idea of how sheer they really are, and how well they blend out into the skin.
L - R: bare 01, Beige 02, Beach 03
As you can see, Bare pretty much blends out and becomes invisible on my skin (I swear it's actually applied onto my skin), while Beige also blends out pretty well, but if you look reaaaallly closely you can see that it's a teensy tiny bit darker than my actual arm (the contrast is best seen at the edges of where the shade was applied). Only Beach is obviously showing up on my skin as a different colour. I could use either Bare or Beige, really, since the shades are so sheer, as once blended out they do look similar on the skin.
So that's it for shade selection. Now let's move on to product performance. The Liz Earle Sheer Skin Tints actually feel quite thick and creamy when they are first squeezed out of the tube - the consistency actually reminds me of the BB Creams we have here in Asia. However, despite the thickness of the Skin Tints, they actually apply really easily on the skin, and because they are so sheer, blend in without much effort. I apply my Skin Tint the traditional way - first dot small amounts of the Skin Tint on various parts of your face (forehead, cheeks, nose, chin) and then blend in with my fingers. I actually get a pretty good, fuss-free application that way.
The finish of the Skin Tints is quite glowy and dewy looking, but devoid of any shimmer or glitter particles. I rather like the finish - I think it strikes a good balance between being glowy, and just looking like an oil volcano erupted on my face. For reference, my skin is normal (oily in some places), and sensitive. The photo below shows me wearing the Sheer Skin Tint in Bare. (And for anyone interested, on my lips I'm wearing my
mauve rose lip shade I mixed a while back from my Sleek Pout Paints.)
As you can see, the finish is glowy, dewy, and soft-looking, without too much obvious shine. I also found that the Sheer Skin Tints tend to sort of "set" on their own, so I didn't need to apply a loose powder over it. However if you wish to, you can - I tried it both ways, and was happy with the result. The only difference I found was that with I loose powder, the time it took for my skin to look shiny and oily was longer than without powder. Personally, my skin does get the oilies pretty fast, so I prefer to wear the Skin Tints with a bit of loose powder over (I use a self-created mixture of random drugstore face powder and silica powder).
All in all, I think the Sheer Skin Tints herald a pretty great start for Liz Earle's foray into colour cosmetics, and if this is the quality of the products the line is coming out with, then I will definitely be eagerly awaiting the introduction of more products to the line. This would be good for girls who want a sheer base with a glowy finish, as well as for girls who would like a makeup base that doesn't dry out your skin. Even for oily girls like myself, this would be fine for wear, with a quick dusting of loose powder. The only catch is that since it is sheer, if you have blemishes or undereye circles to cover, you would still need to pair it with a concealer. Otherwise, I'm pretty glad I tried this product, and I certainly hope to see more of Liz Earle's colour line coming out in the future.
(Product was sent for review. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company.)
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
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