A week of Purlisse Perfect Glow BB Cream

Spending a lot of time at home lately has caused me to do a lot of spring cleaning and reorganizing.  I’m sure I am not alone in this.  I think a lot of people decided similar things if conversations with friends about which Goodwill is currently accepting donations and the plethora of Youtube declutter videos are any indication. 

In my attempt to organize the chaos, I found that I accumulated quite a few sample sized products.  I rotated all of the open ones to the front of my dressing table and did my best to work through most of them, clearing out the no longer good products and finally using up the last of a few fabulous products I for some reason I appeared to be hoarding.

“I know there is only one, possibly two uses left in this liquid lipstick sample from smashbox, but I’m going to hold on to it in case of an emergency.”

This appears to be my subconscious thinking. I’m not entirely certain what sort of emergency I would actually react to with a twenty to thirty minute rummage through the contents of my catch all makeup drawer to find a sample size lipstick of any variety (although I really did like the lipstick and will be purchasing a full sized version once I clear out some space by using up older lipsticks).

I ended up rotating the almost empty sample into my makeup bag, using it up and making note of the shade color and brand in my reorder notebook before I chucked it out. And yes I have a reorder notebook.  I mark things down, especially lipstick shades, so I remember which I liked (mostly because I am the queen of ordering the wrong shade of lipstick).  I also have a section of things I’ve heard of but haven’t tried yet in my notebook. Because there are so many things out there that I want to try.

Mixed in with these half opened products I had several unopened sample sizes of BB and CC cream as well as some foundation samples. I put them all in a box, shook the box up and selected one at random.  The one I chose to try this past week was the Purlisse Perfect Glw BB Cream with SPF 30. 

And as soon as I chose it for my weekly makeup bag, my Boxycharm box arrived with a full sized version of the product inside.

Like magic.

I decided to go ahead and use the sample size and save the full sized one.  I figured if I didn’t like it then I would only waste the little sample rather than the large one .  That way I could always pass the unopened full size to someone else.

I have to say, I’m keeping the full sized version.

But I’m going to leave it sealed until I work through some of the other open products. So it is still less wasteful.

This was the first makeup item I have tried from Purlisse.  I actually had to check on that because Purlisse has been a frequent visitor to my vanity and for a while I was certain I’d seen it before.

When I looked through my notes though, it was all skin care. Almost all of which I really liked. The serum wasn’t my favorite, but all of the moisturizers I have tried, I would order again. Their specialty seems to be the ability to work with your skin in an unstable climate.

You know, as soon as I wrote that I thought, apocalyptic skincare.

I didn’t mean pack it for the end of days, I meant like spring and fall temperature and humidity shifting.

(Although now I have a 1950’s style atomic bomb style commercial playing in my head – Hi there Mrs. Smith, Packing for the Apocalypse are we? Well don’t forget to pack your apocalyptic skin care. You’ll just love the radiation blocking capacity and that new fresh scent! – For those following along its a black and white cartoon with a movie tone narrator voice over. Just so you get the full picture. Cause I’d hate for you to get confused.)

Okay back to the actual Purlisse Perfect Glow BB Cream.

And while most of you are thinking I should just get to the BB Cream, these were the thoughts going through my head when I picked the BB cream up.  I wondered if it would have the same flexibility, shall we say, as seem to be built into their moisturizers.  But lets see what they have to say about it.

According to the Purlisse website…

Complexion perfection for a gorgeous matte meets dewy finish! Your multi-tasking beauty balm that glides on like a tinted moisturizer with all the age-defying, coverage, sunscreen benefits of a foundation and BB cream! It’s perfect for getting that Instagram- filtered version of yourself, featuring our exclusive Asian Herb extracts complex.

For normal or dry skin types, wear over Purlisse moisturizers. For oily skin, wear alone. For extra coverage, wear under foundation.

As we are in summer, I thought a lighter BB cream might be a good idea.  I especially wanted something lighter because I added the new layer of sunscreen to my daily routine. (I am completely in love with the Volition sunscreen)  I did use the Purlisse Perfect Glow one day without the sunscreen so that I could gauge the difference both with and without the Volition Sunscreen. The Volition sunscreen didn’t have issues with this or any other product I tried it with.  The Purlisse did really well for my skin either way. 

It is a very light coverage, but it is coverage. I’ve tried some BB creams that either covered nothing and were therefore pointless or tried too hard and were too heavy, thus defeating the purpose of the product. This BB Cream covered my skin enough to make me feel confident in my skin, but was the perfect summer skin almost bare look.

Because I think I have larger pores, I still used a primer with this BB Cream.  I was fine without the primer, but I really preferred the look of my skin with the primer underneath.  I don’t think that is the fault of the cream, I think that is my personal preference.

I will say that applying it really does need a makeup sponge.  The brush just wasn’t a good idea as it just sort of streaked it across the face and using my hands just ended up applying too much product. 

To apply I just put a little dab on my hand, dipped the damp sponge into the product and then dabbed on my face, blending as I went.  I started in areas where I have a couple of healing eruptions and then worked out from there so that the red spots received a little more product but my skin looked evenly balanced. It is a light enough product that it feels weightless and it doesn’t settle into any lines or cause issues.

The Purlisse BB Cream comes in eleven different shades.  The shade I am using for my summer tanned skin is light medium. There are two shades lighter on the scale pictured on their chart.

This gives me a little wiggle room should I want to pick up another tube once the summer wanes.  It’s nice to know that, but truthfully, I almost never reach for BB creams in the winter.  For me they always seem like a summer product. I have friends who wear them year round, but I really tend to forget about them once the weather turns. Although in all honesty, I’ve never found a BB cream I liked as much as I like this one. So possibly, I will try it after the weather turns. I just have to adjust my summer only mindset.

Because I’m using a sample sized tube of product, I ended up using a substantial portion of it this week.  But I didn’t use it all.  So I am going to go ahead and give it a second week in my makeup bag to use up the sample tube and remove it from my dressing table drawer. I suspect if it returns to the drawer it will sink into darkness only reappearing as it shuffles zombie like from the depths, its remaining product of no use. So it is better to use it now.

I still have the full bottle in the regular size so I’m sure it will make an appearance again later in the summer, but this way I won’t have half a tube lingering forgotten and alone in the drawer. 

This means that next week, I will be skipping the foundation review since it will be a repeat. I’ll be sure to add something else to the makeup bag to take its place in the reviews though. There is always either something new I’ll be delighted to talk about or an old favorite I can tell stories about. If any of you see anything in the makeup bag you want to hear more about let me know, I can always break it out for a seperate review. I’ll be choosing next week’s bag tonight so that I can post a picture with this week’s post.

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