Fenty Beauty Pro Filt’r Soft Matte Longwear Foundation

I was intrigued and excited by Rihanna releasing a makeup range and when I knew she was bringing out a foundation I couldn’t wait to try it – I love trying out foundations! Not long after launch, I ordered the foundation and one of the highlighter duos from Harvey Nichols.

I ordered the shade 120, which is described as for fair skin with neutral undertones. I usually err on the side of caution when ordering foundation online and go pretty pale just in case it’s darker than I imagined. This one turned out to be a good shade match actually; it is pale but once I’ve completed all my makeup it looks fine! The shade range of this foundation is phenomenal, with 40 shades on launch.

Packaging-wise, the bottle is pretty with frosted glass and white lid and pump. The pump itself is very good and gives you control over how much product you want.

I was so excited by this launch that I was going to buy this foundation regardless, but in hindsight maybe I should have paid more attention to the details and waited for some reviews. As it says in the name, this foundation is matte. However, I was still shocked by exactly how matte the finish was. I don’t usually go for matte foundation and this is the mattest one I’ve used so far!

To apply, I used a wet beauty sponge and would typically do about three layers to achieve a medium-high coverage that I was happy with. For me, I definitely needed to build it up as one layer didn’t cover enough and looked a bit blotchy.

The first few times I used it I also used setting powder on top, just as a course of habit really as that’s what I always do with other foundation. This did not turn out well and therefore my first impressions of this foundation were not good. It looked dry and cakey and it wore horribly on my T-Zone, combining with my natural oils to make a gross cake-fest that broke apart and was impossible to rectify.

In an attempt to make this foundation work better for me, I eliminated using setting powder. Being a truly matte foundation it does really set down and I found I was able to use my powder products on top, like bronzer and blush, and they would blend just fine and not go patchy. This was new to me as like I said, I always use setting powder on top of my other foundations, to lengthen wear-time, but also for fear of my bronzer etc not blending properly on top of foundation without it. No setting powder is definitely the way to go with this foundation.

It fared far better minus the setting powder and lasted well on a cold winter day – about 8-10 hours actually – but I’m not convinced it would do this well on a hotter day. Despite a good wear-time, I still did not like the way it looked. It still looked a bit cakey around my nose and between my brows and forehead. It wore slightly on the tip of my nose. It’s not a pretty sight under glasses’ nose pads. Overall, I felt my skin looked lifeless. It accentuated any dryness on my face and looked flakey and therefore aging. I found it looked better as the day went on and the powdery matteness died down but not enough to detract from it accentuating any dryness or flakiness.

This foundation is sadly not my cup of tea. I will use up the bottle because I can’t bear to waste it, but I would not repurchase this. I feel like this is probably an oily skin person’s foundation as it did my ‘normal’ skin no favours!

Love Nicole xxxx