Big Promises & expectations from the Charlotte Tilbury Magic foundation. Charlotte is so passionate about her range and this foundation has been 5 years in the making so I had high hopes before it hit my face. Charlotte was looking for that full coverage foundation without the cake face..it seems every brand has *this* foundation but few seem to achieve it quite right
Currently my skin is pretty bad with redness and breakouts so an ideal time to try this foundation. I have been trying it out for the past few weeks and here are my thoughts..
On application the foundation seems quite thick and heavy, and through a little trial and error, is best applied with a buffing foundation brush to allow the product to warm up and fuse into the skin more easily. It gives a nice quick coverage and I don’t need a huge amount to cover areas of redness, scarring and blemishes. In the below snaps I have no concealer on, just this foundation. I also have open pores and it does smooth them slightly and generally gives my skin a fresher and more youthful appearance with a touch of glow.
It’s neither particularly matte or dewy , it has a creamy satin-like finish so will cater to most skin types although probably not for the super dry or excessively oily. Also, if you don’t need/like a good coverage then stick with her Light Wonder foundation which is just a teeny step up from a tinted moisturiser-kinda-coverage. For me, this was too light for the coverage I need for going-out makeup but more for a summer base.
This foundation comes in 12 shades catering for all skin tones, and I am currently wearing a 4 which seems to be a very good match. The makeup wizards at the Charlotte Tilbury counters tend to be really good so do ask for help with a quick match if you are unsure. If you can’t get to a counter then it’s actually relatively easy to match online with the colour/number descriptions with accompanying hot model so you can kind of gauge where you are in the Tilbury Spectrum.
The Charlotte Tilbury magic foundation contains skincare ingredients including a mushroom extract to tighten pores, hyaluronic spheres that flood the skin with hydration and plump the skin, vitamin C for anti-ageing benefits and broad spectrum SPF15 to protect from sun damage. I can also see a fair bit of silicone in the ingredients list and that will also help with the smoothing skin, refining pores and lines. There are some quite big claims about this foundation reducing the appearance of age spots and acne which I tend to just ignore, I would just focus on this being a great foundation with skincare as opposed to something that is actually going to improve and change your skin ; leave that to your actual skincare.
It wears pretty well on my skin and keeps fresh-looking for hours before I need to powder. This is 100% a foundation to try if you have problematic skin, want flawless perfection, like a double wear but fancy something updated. The packaging is as expected ; pretty and rose gold, although for some reason I didn’t expect it to have a white plastic pump which kind of looked a little non-tilbury… I thought they would stick with perhaps the maroon plastic…either way I’m quibbling about totally irrelevant crap here. Who the hell cares.
S U M M A R Y
* Good for acne / scarring /redness / full coverage
* Skincare infused makeup
* Has a slight glow/ dewiness
* Wears for a good 3 hours before touch ups (on my skin)
* Best applied with a buffing foundation brush
* Start small and build up
* Good for all ages & skintypes (possibly not the dry / very dry)
* Add Wonderglow in for a lighter & more radiant finish
* Light Wonder Foundation = Summer Coverage / Magic Foundation = Winter Coverage
The Magic foundation costs £29.50 which is expected from a premium makeup range, I actually thought it would cost a bit more. This is cheaper than most Laura Mercier / NARS / Bobbi Brown yada yada foundations and is absolutely worth the splurge in my opinion. If you like your double wear, studio fix fluid, LM silk creme, Illamasqua skin base etc then this is to be put on your Christmas list pronto.
