Illamasqua Skin Base Foundation #05, #06 and #07 (swatches & review)

Having had a love-hate relationship with foundation for many years now, it was with a touch of skepticism that I began my reviewing/testing process of these three Illamasqua Skin Base Foundation samples. When I originally wrote about this innovative product (review can be found here), it was described as “skin realism” and I can honestly say after seeing the results for myself, that I am not only duly impressed, but a true believer! Al swatches were applied over bare unprimed skin.

From left to right are 05 – pink undertone, 06 – neutral, and 07 – pink undertone. Normally, I would avoid any foundation or powder with pink undertones like the plague, but for the sake of an honest review, I gave this a fair shot. I have slight yellowish leanings in my skintone, and usually anything pink tinged near my face makes me look chalky. Read on to see how these stood up! The following swatches for all photos, are left to right: 05, 06 and 07.

This view of the three samples taken in full sunlight, best shows their true colour and my first impression was that surprisingly, 07 seemed not only a lot less pink than I thought it would be, but the closest match to my natural skin tone.

This first shaded light view truly brings out the pink undertones of 05 and 07, and clearly sets 06 apart. Interestingly enough, 07 still appears to be my best match.

Upon viewing the three under different lighting with even more shade, they all seem to now take on a slightly yellowish cast and yet 07 still looks like my best bet.

Once I began spreading them out, all of a sudden everything changed; 07 now stood out the most against my skin, and 06 started to look much closer, with 05 appearing to not be a contender anymore, especially when seen in full sun as in this photo above.

Shaded light only confirmed what I saw just before, yet even though 07 looks darker against my skin than originally believed, I find that it still compliments my tone and even its pink base does not detract from that.

Once I blended the three out thoroughly, the magic began! Seen in full and unforgivingly bright sunlight, note how they all seem to just melt onto my skin and while any one of these wouldn’t be a bad match, clearly 05 is a tad too bright and 07 a touch too dark, but 06…..now THAT was just right, as Goldilocks would say!

You might wonder why I included this photo taken in shaded light, but in my opinion, if you can’t tell where a foundation begins and ends against your natural skin tone, then you know you have a winner and have met your match! In the photo above, I can just see a slight discernible difference of 05 and 07 against my skin, but 06 is near invisible now.

Final thoughts: The formula on these was truly amazing; inspired by the cult Asian brand Beauty Balm, ‘Skin Base Foundation’, once you’ve found your true match – and that won’t be hard to do considering the fact that there are 18 shades available, from white all the way to deep, dark neutral – will not disappoint. I noticed that you need to work quickly as once the foundation begins to dry, it starts setting and you can’t blend it out as easily, but doing one area at a time certainly solves that issue. I applied these ‘Skin Base Foundation’ samples using a foundation brush (Sephora Collection I.T. Natural Foundation Brush) and found the results even better than using my fingers, which I normally prefer to do, and was so thrilled with how “my-skin-but-better” my face actually appeared! The staying power was phenomenal (easily 8-10 hours) without any fading, flaking or creasing, nor did my skin turn into an oily hot mess. If one tone still doesn’t fully match your skin, then you can combine the shades for a more personalized colour. In case you’re still not sure of your shade, Illamasqua has a fabulously convenient comparison chart on their site, which should be a great help. Retailing at £25/CAD $38.50/US $40.00 for 30 ml/1 oz, ‘Skin Base Foundation’ can be purchased through the Illamasqua website.