Category Archives: Concealer

Kevyn Aucoin Sensual Skin Enhancer Review & Swatches

Kevin Aucoin Sensual Skin Enhancer - SX 04

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.

Hard Candy Light and Medium Glamoflauge Concealer Review & Swatches

Hard Candy Glamoflauge – light & medium

I’ve heard many times that Hard Candy Glamoflauge heavy duty concealer is one of the most opaque concealers available, which piqued my interest. After looking at swatches online, I thought I was probably between light and medium – so for $6 a tube, I thought I would just buy both. I just checked the website, and there is now a shade labeled “med light,” which I would guess is in between the shades I bought, but it wasn’t available a few weeks ago.

Hard Candy Glamoflauge is packaged in a small tube. The packaging is good quality and functional – it has a nozzle opening, which is perfect for the texture and because so little is needed. Each tube of Glamoflauge also includes a mini concealer pencil, which can be used in many ways – to spot conceal, to layer with the concealer for more coverage, as a reverse lip liner, or on the waterline to brighten the eye (I believe it is eye safe, but I’m not completely sure). Both the light and the medium shades of Glamoflauge included a pencil labeled “light / pale.”

The texture of the concealer is thick and creamy, and it is indeed extremely opaque. Only a tiny amount will completely cover a large area. To my eye, the light shade is fairly neutral, and the medium shade is quite olive. The light/pale concealer pencil is somewhere in between the two concealers in depth, and looks to have yellow undertones.

Hard Candy Glamoflauge swatches:
light/pale pencil, light concealer, medium concealer

I own MAC Chromagraphic pencil in NC15/NW20 (I use it almost exclusively on my waterline), and I compared it to the Hard Candy concealer pencil. They’re quite similar, but the MAC pencil is a tough lighter and slightly more creamy.

Comparison swatches: Glamoflauge light/pale pencil , MAC NC15 / NW20 pencil

Glamoflauge light/pale pencil (left)
MAC NC15 / NW20 pencil (right)

In order to demonstrate the coverage of this concealer, I used a tiny amount to cover a freckle on my inner arm – this is a very thin layer! I believe I mixed both shades, but I don’t remember. It’s not a good match for my arm, nor a particularly color accurate photo, but still shows how opaque the coverage is!

Overall, I would recommend this concealer – it’s both inexpensive and good quality. The main downside is that, as a drugstore product, you have to guess which color would be a good match.

Hard Candy Glamoflauge is available in five shades – Ultra Light, Light, Light Medium, Medium, and Tan. Hard Candy is exclusively available at Wal-Mart; since there is no store near me, I ordered online, and shipping was prompt and just under $2.

Maybelline Dream Lumi Touch Concealer Review, Swatches, Photos

Although I’m really happy with the shimmery/glowy highlighters I own, I recently decided that I would like to add a cream, non-shimmery highligher to my stash. So, I purchased one of the lightest shades of Maybelline’s Dream Lumi Touch highlighting concealer to use a highlighter. I chose the second lightest shade, 320 Ivory, rather than the lightest shade (310 Radiance), because Ivory is more yellow and Radiance is more pink, and I tend to look better in yellow-based shades — though I’m not sure it matters for a highlighter.

I swatched it next to Clinique’s Airbrush Concealer in 04 Neutral Fair, because I wondered how similar they were. They have similar packaging and very similar consistencies. However, the shades I have are quite different; the Clinique is similar to my skintone, while the Maybelline is significantly lighter than it – which makes it a bit difficult to do a meaningful comparison.

Most of my swatch photos ended up overexposed. The first photo is more clear, but overexposed (my skin & the concealers are not actually that pale) – the second is a bit blurry, but the colors are more accurate.

Maybelline Dream Lumi Concealer 320 Ivory, Clinique Airbrush Concealer 04 Neutral Fair
Photo is overexposed

Maybelline Dream Lumi Concealer 320 Ivory, Clinique Airbrush Concealer 04 Neutral Fair

Although click-pen packaging isn’t my favorite, Maybelline’s Dream Lumi click pen is extremely functional – it only took a few clicks (maybe 30 seconds at most) to get the concealer started, and it only takes 1-2 clicks to dispense more product. I haven’t had any trouble with too little or too much product being dispensed.

Because it’s far too light for me, I can’t really evaluate it as a concealer. It does seem to brighten a bit. It has medium coverage for a concealer – more than a foundation, but far less than opaque.

As for use as a highlighter, I really like it! I tried to take before/ after photos using it as a highlighter, but it’s just too subtle to really show up; I find that’s true of most highlighters. Overall, I would definitely recommend both a too-light concealer and this particular one as a highlighter.

OCC Skin Conceal Y1 Review, Swatches, Photos

OCC Skin: Conceal in Y1, packaging and ingredients

I’ve had my eye out for a good concealer – to be used primarily for my face, not under my eyes – and after reading this review on Temptalia of the new Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics Concealer, OCC Skin: Conceal, I thought it might do the trick.

Based of the swatches at Temptalia, I actually thought I would be between Y1 and Y2, so I emailed OCC to ask what they thought; they suggested Y0 or R0 for under my eyes, and Y1 for for my face – I always forget that Christine at Temptalia has a deeper skin tone than I do, so colors look lighter on her! I’m glad I emailed to ask; as it turns out, Y1 is a great match for me in terms of color depth. It’s a little bit more yellow than my (more or less neutral-toned) skin, but works perfectly over reddened blemishes, as the yellow cancels out the red, and it’s close enough to my skin to work just fine on its own anywhere on my fine.

OCC Conceal Y1

The texture of OCC Conceal is quite creamy, and the coverage is very opaque. I like to apply it with a clean brush, then blend it out with either my fingers or a barely-damp beautyblender.

Although I bought it mainly to use on my face, it also works under my eyes. Here’s a photo of it in action:

no makeup // OCC Skin Conceal in Y1

Overall, I’m really pleased with this purchase. It is a great concealer, and although I took a chance and ordered it blind, I got an excellent color match.

I ordered my concealer from occmakeup.com for $20 plus $5 shipping, and it arrived quickly.

Project Swatch #20: Concealer Comparison, Swatches

Today, I’ve swatched my concealers for you. (By the way – I’m not done with the eyeshadow posts – lots more coming up soon!)

First, I have Laura Geller The Real Deal concealer in Medium. I LOVE THIS CONCEALER. It is super, super opaque – the tiniest little bit covers extremely well. And, despite coming in only three shades (what’s that even about??), medium matches me perfectly. If you’re lucky enough to find a match, I cannot recommend this highly enough.

Second is Clinique All About Eyes concealer in 03 Light Petal. This is a really wonderful undereye concealer, the salmon? tones are perfect to cancel out under circles. The texture is also really nice – again, I really would recommend this to anyone looking for a good undereye concealer.

And finally, Clinique Airbrush concealer in 04 Neutral Fair. I bought this because Lisa Eldrige frequently recommends it. This is supposed to be a light reflecting concealer, a la YSL Touche Eclat. Normally, I don’t like click-tube style packaging, but I haven’t had any trouble with this one. Per Lisa Eldrige’s recommendation, I use this both under my eyes and on other areas of my face. I like it fine, but I don’t find it exceptional.

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