Kevyn Aucoin Sensual Skin Enhancer – SX 04

I am extremely impressed with Beauty.com right now – I placed my Friends & Family sale order at 9pm on a Tuesday night, selected free (standard) shipping, and received my order on Thursday! I purchased two items – Rapidlash and Kevyn Aucoin Sensual Skin Enhancer.  Sensual Skin Enhancer, or SSE, is an extremely pigmented product that can be used as either a concealer or mixed with primer/moisturizer and used as a foundation.

Sensual Skin Enhancer is packaged in a tiny, deep red pot. I love the color!  It’s really very small, but given how intensely pigmented the product is, it will last you a VERY long time.  It’s more pigmented than Hard Candy Glamoflauge – which until now was the most pigmented concealer I had tried. Here’s a photo of me holding the pot of SSE, for scale:

Since I ordered this online, I wasn’t completely sure what shade to get.  I knew I was somewhere around SX04 – SX06.  Members of an online forum I frequent said that SX05 was neutral and SX06 was extremely yellow; since I look best in slightly yellow foundations, I decided to go with SX04.  I also found these swatches online at Beauty Professor – she’s missing 5, but has 4 and 6 swatched side by side.

Here are my swatches of SX04, unblended, blended, and blended/mixed with primer. As you can see, it’s quite yellow, and doesn’t match my arm at all:

Kevyn Aucoin SSE SX04 – Unblended, blended, and blended & mixed with primer

I was pretty skeptical that this color would work on my face, but I gave it a try – and here are the results:

No makeup // Just SSE (mixed with primer) // added blush, brows, mascara, lips

In the first picture, I’m not wearing any makeup at all – you can see that I have residual marks from a breakout on my chin, and a lot of redness. In the second picture, I’m wearing the Sensual Skin Enhancer mixed with Hourglass Veil Mineral Primer all over my face, and extra Sensual Skin Enhancer (unmixed) on the blemishes on my chin.  It did a great job at covering the redness and marks, though they’re not 100% gone – I could have covered them completely, but didn’t want a mask-like look. I’d rather have an imperfect, more skin-like look. And,  as you can see, the color ended up working very well for me, and the finish is lovely (especially with the Hourglass primer mixed in!).  In the third photo, I’ve done my brows (with this product), added Illamasqua Rude cream blush, added mascara & tightlined, and I’m wearing Fresh Sugar Honey tinted lip balm.

I’ve worn the Sensual Skin enhancer several times now – every day since I received it, in fact, and I am really loving it.  It’s not the easiest product to use – while it can be used full strength as concealer, it absolutely needs to be mixed with something if you want to use it as foundation, so you can’t just slap it on and go.  But, if you take the time to work with it, it gives a lovely finish and lasts all day.  So, overall, I’d give it a thumbs up.

You can purchase Kevyn Aucoin products online at Nordstrom and Beauty.com. Be aware that not all Nordstrom stores carry Kevyn Aucoin products – none of the ones near me do.