Magic Minerals

I’ve been using the same foundation for ages, No 7 Intelligent Colour foundation.  Whilst I like it, it’s not without its flaws – it can be thin at first and grainy towards the end of the tube.  So, with the hot weather of recent months making liquid foundation melty, I decided to try mineral foundation, which lasts a lot longer in hot weather.  I’ve tried two recently – Elf Mineral Foundation and Prestige Skin Loving Minerals.  The Elf foundation was £3.50 from their website, and I bought Prestige at Boots.com for about £9.95 (with free delivery to the store).

I don’t know if anyone else has had this trouble with Elf, but the swatches on their website are just terrible!  They’re nothing like the actual colours you get!  Anyway, as I’m so pale I just ordered the lightest colour, ‘Fair’.  Despite this, it’s actually too dark for me, although it just about works with a light tan.  I find that Elf products are very hit or miss – but for the prices they charge, they’re usually worth a go.  This foundation is definitely a miss.  Not only is it too dark for me, it is very powdery on the skin, sinks into the creases on my forehead, making them look worse, the coverage is not even and it’s not easy to blend, and it’s generally quite heavy for a powder.  In the pot, the powder particles are quite large, which probably makes the heavy feeling.  For £3.50, I’m not too disappointed, but I won’t be buying it again.

I’m much more impressed with Skin Loving Minerals.  I also bought this online, as it’s always out of stock at Boots.  Again, I ordered it blind, and again, I ordered the lightest colour, also called ‘Fair’.  This time, though it’s a lighter colour, and one which is a perfect match on my skin.  It’s much lighter than the Elf product, not only in colour, but also in feeling on my skin.  It’s a finer sifted powder, and is less powdery on my face and really easy to blend. This foundation also sinks into the creases on my skin, but not to the same extent that the Elf one does.

In comparison with liquid foundation, both of these have a greater staying power, and less of a shine factor.  I’ve found the coverage has been good, for both of the mineral foundations, on a par with the No 7 Intelligent Colour, and they are easier to blend in, to ensure no tide marks.  However, they do both emphasise my fledgling wrinkles and both of them also sink into my rather large pores – I do need to keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t just sit in my wrinkles.  I’ve used Mac Prep + Prime Skin before the Mineral Foundation and this definitely helps with both the pores and wrinkle issues, but it’s still not perfect.

The packaging of both products is good and is a lot less messy than loose powders.  You can see from the photos that both pots are relatively clean, despite using them both for a good few weeks and being kicked around in my makeup bag.

Prestige on the left, Elf on the right

In terms of price, the Elf seems to be better value.  However, the Elf is 0.1 oz, whereas the Prestige is 0.23 oz, so they actually are roughly about the same cost for the amount of product you get. 

Elf on the left, Prestige on the right

So, I’ll definitely be buying the Prestige again – it’s a good summer foundation, with a light finish, but good coverage, and it’s much better quality than the Elf one.  Maybe I’ll splash out for Bare Escentuals in the future, but I’ll stick with Prestige for now!

Thanks for reading x