BB creams (or beauty balms as their full name) are all the rage right now as they offer loads more benefits than traditional foundations. BB creams prime, hydrate, protect & perfect skin while providing a range of coverage. They also contain SPF to protect your skin from harmful UV rays. Originating in Japan and South Korea (where I was at first very wary of trying them out while we were living there back in 2010), they can be worn alone as a tinted moisturizer, over serum and moisturizer as a regular foundation, or under powder, depending on the desired amount of coverage.
Revlon & Garnier have been the first that I have seen to introduce their versions, but I have been a little wary of forking out too much to try out something that seems very gimmicky. Which is why when I saw this one from Essence at Dischem for R54.95 I thought I'd give it a bash.
It's light and blends seamlessly into skin with very little effort. Providing light to medium coverage depending on how much you build up the product. It leaves my skin feeling soft and moisturized, and so far has lasted the whole day without leaving me looking oily. As you can see from my slightly cheesy and ID look a like photo's below, the coverage is light, but definitely evens out my complexion, and does a decent job of covering up my pigmentation without looking cakey.
My only concern is that currently there are only 3 shades, so if you don't fit into the light/medium or dark category you are kinda stuck. But, its very easily to blend with a concealer for added coverage or colour options.
It's been a very long time since I bought anything from Skinfood. I think the last purchase I made was a repurchase of their signature Black Sugar Serum (and that was back in 2014!). South Korea is well known for their cutesy packaging and beautifully designed products, and more importantly, for how effective their products are. It takes just a moment of looking around at the women here to be able to see how beautifully cared for their skin is. A large reason their skin looks the way it does is because of protecting their faces (and every other body part) form the sun, but they also spend a lot of time and effort on their beauty routines (do you remember my post on the 10 Step Korean Skincare routine?).
There are so many Korean skincare and beauty brands, and each of them is associated with something unique. Etude House is know for it's very cutesy and girly packaging, Missha is seen as a higher end brand, Tony Moly is what all the school girls favor and Innsifree is seen as the Eco-friendly flagship brand. I always saw Skinfood as one of the cheaper brands, more so when it came to quality than actual price. Most of the products from Etude, Tony Moly and Skinfood are actually priced very similarly but from the look of their packaging, I wasn't really blown away.