Sephora + Pantone Color IQ

Aright, I have definitely been a huge proponent of skin care as makeup and generally skip foundation in favor of a pore minimizer and sunscreen, but I decided with special events coming up I wanted to put a little more effort into my face.

For the first time in forever I put on my go-to foundation... Only to find that I hate it. It matched fine and all, but it felt so thick and heavy, and looked too cakey for my taste to boot. And this is without primer or powder- just straight foundation. So I set off on a mission to find the perfect lightweight foundation that would feel like I wasn't wearing anything.

Turns out, it's actually kind of daunting to just look at foundations, it's basically impossible to tell them apart. After looking at Sephora for a bit, I noticed they have this shiny new feature called Color IQ, where Sephora partnered with Pantone to create a whole host of skin tones to match with people's skin, and then foundations match to those tones. It all seems very scientific and you can learn more about it here. 

Anyhow, I went to Sephora, got my skin matched, and every foundation the girl tried on me Did Not match. So sad. So we did the skin matching thing again (which is supposed to work even if it's pitch black), got a different number, and lo and behold, the one she tried actually looked really good! It was still more than i'm used to, and it's a BB cream which i've always felt are a little too thick and heavy, but it's got SPF45, all sorts of other good things, and it's actually classified as a skin care product as opposed to makeup. So this was really a score. my new face makeup: Dr. Jart+ Premium Beauty Balm.

What's cool too is you can save you number match to your Beauty Insider account and look at other things that will match, which is actually a lot more detailed in store than online– you can look at foundation, concealer, or lips in store so you can go back and check out other things. I'll definitely be trying out other options now that i found something that has made me less unhappy with foundations, and less intimidated by looking for the right one.

Anyhow, here is a picture of my face. I went a bit light with the BB cream, just did a gentle brushing of it on. 

I also went really light with blush and bronzer cuz it was my first day of spin class at Soul Cycle in Fashion Island since my work had some sort of promotion for a free month in September. It was Quite Intense, let me tell you. these pix are from pre-spin, where my hair was nice, before it got all matted, curly, and soaked to my face. It was a great workout though, had a lot to it and went by super fast–definitely glad i brought a gigantic bottle of water with me too. But i was pretty stoked to bring my own motivation to class via my french fry gym pants (got soooo many compliments too, surprising how many people like fry pants) and super comfy twist back top so it was a great day (and both Black Milk).

Oh, and on my eyes, we've got the Electric palette and Lancome Hypnose Drama w/p mascara. I also totally forgot, to keep up with the lip thing, I was wearing a new Naked lipgloss in the color Naked. Cuz that's apparently what everything is named. 

This look was loosely based (like a sad messy quick version) on this rad tutorial by Hannah Renee, here.

woo! gonna kick that spin class's ass!!! (I didn't, as it happens. it definitely kicked my ass)