This week I pulled a travel sized tube of the Yensa Color + Face Skin on Skin BC Foundation from my dressing table.  It is one of the few remaining sample sizes left in my dressing table and it is a summer shade I want to get some use out of before my tan fades.  In case you are wondering the BC part of the name stands for BB cream plus CC cream. It is listed as a full coverage foundation with eight superblocks essences and SPF40.

I recently watched a You Tube video with Wayne Goss explaining the amount of foundation you would need to wear before you actually managed to impart the SPF potential in foundation to your skin.  It is very eye opening and I highly recommend watching.  The basic review was you need far more product than you would ever rationally use to get the sunblock benefits so it isn’t a good idea to rely on its protection. He demonstrates it beautifully.

Which I didn’t rely on foundation spf before to be honest, so it feels like confirmation of me doing the right thing. Which is sort of unusual, but nice.  I like spf in the products I layer onto my face, but I add a full on sunblock as well.  So it’s nice to have the spf here, but it is more of an additional perk if it does anything.

As for the foundation itself, according to the Yensa Website …

8 BENEFITS FOR A SUPERFOOD GLOW™:

∞ Full coverage foundation

∞ SPF 40 protection

∞ Graceful aging moisturizer

∞ Built in concealer

∞ Provides brighter and even skin tone

∞ Helps minimize the appearance of pores
∞ Nourishes skin with 8 SuperBlacks Essence
∞ Blurs, imperfections, fine lines and wrinkles

 Ingredients in Tan Neutral Shade

Water, Cyclopentasiloxane, Titanium Dioxide (CI 77891), Ethylhexyl Methoxycinnamate, Zinc Oxide, Cyclohexasiloxane, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Butylene Glycol, Cetyl PEG/PPG-10/1 Dimethicone, CI 77492, Sorbitan Sesquioleate, Ethylhexyl Palmitate, Arbutin, Dimethicone, Sodium Chloride, Beeswax, Stearalkonium Hectorite, Magnesium Aluminum Silicate, CI 77491, Phenoxyethanol, Dimethicone/Vinyl Dimethicone Crosspolymer, CI 77499, Ozokerite, PEG-10 Dimethicone Crosspolymer, Aronia Melanocarpa Fruit Extract, Sesamum Indicum (Sesame) Seed Extract, Nigella Sativa Seed Extract, Rubus Fruticosus (Blackberry) Fruit Extract, Oryza Sativa (Rice) Extract, Undaria Pinnatifida Extract, Laminaria Japonica Extract, Camellia Sinensis Leaf Extract, Aluminum Hydroxide, Triethoxycaprylylsilane, Adenosine, Olea Europaea (Olive) Fruit Oil, Citrus Aurantium Bergamia (Bergamot) Fruit Oil, Sesamum Indicum (Sesame) Seed Oil, Lavandula Angustifolia (Lavender) Oil, Cananga Odorata Flower Oil, Pelargonium Graveolens Flower Oil, Citrus Aurantium Dulcis (Orange) Oil, Cymbopogon Martini Oil, Michelia Alba Flower Oil, Eugenia Caryophyllus (Clove) Leaf Oil, Eucalyptus Globulus Leaf Oil, 1,2-Hexanediol, Jasminum Officinale (Jasmine) Oil, Sodium Hyaluronate, Ethylhexylglycerin, Acetyl Hexapeptide-8, Lentinus Edodes Extract, Urtica Dioica (Nettle) Extract, Salvia Hispanica Seed Extract, Linalool, Limonene

yensa website

Those are all things I am down for. I have to admit that I do like the fact that each shade has it’s own ingredient’s list.  As you can see from the one I copied out, it is for the shade Tan Neutral, which is my summer shade and the shade I used. It is the seventh shade on the eleven spectrum range. 

To be fair, I think that I will be able to use this shade more or less until Halloween.  Then I would blend it with one shade lighter until the end of November and then use the one shade lighter until May, when I would gradually start blending the Tan Neutral into the Medium Gold, thus returning to Tan Neutral.

Anything lighter than the one below my current shade would be too light for me even in the deepest winter and any shade darker than Tan Medium would be far too dark for me even in the deepest of summer. While I can’t personally judge the effectiveness of the range on either darker or lighter skin tones, the shades do seem to have a great deal of flexibility in them. Currently I hover somewhere in the middle of the spectrum.

With full coverage foundations, I am always a little worried that the foundation will end up coming off looking like a mask.  When people wear the full mask like foundations it actually sort of creeps me out a bit.  It is fine on camera, I get why you might want to look flawless on screen. And don’t get me wrong, I am working with my skin care routine to make my skin look as good naturally as I possibly can, but I still like when skin looks like skin.  With the mask like appearance of some full coverage foundations I start to have Phillip K. Dick based nightmares.

Do androids dream of electric sheep?

This is not something I need to worry about just before I go to sleep.

That being said, I adore Yensa’s primer from this line and I do not mind keeping a full coverage foundation around as long as it isn’t mask like.

This was in no way mask like.  It went on like a dream.  It covered my dark spots and felt like a moisturizer.  It covered everything I didn’t want to show but wasn’t mask like in any way.  It wasn’t cakey and didn’t settle into my fine lines.  It looked just as good at the end of the day as it did at the start.  While it was matte in finish, which I really like, it didn’t give me dead looking skin which sometimes matte finishes can do.  I didn’t have any noticeable shine by the end of the day either, which is a minor miracle given the heat.  Admittedly this week is less humid than it’s been in a while, so that helped.  But I didn’t have to powder my nose midday.

To be honest, I can’t find anything wrong with this foundation.  The sample sized tube I used contained 10 mL of product.  The tube was packed full, there was virtually no air space left in the tube when I opened it.  The amount dispensed on my hand in the photo was way too much product.  It was my first use and I simply squeezed out too much.  I needed about half that amount to cover my face.  Looking at the tube now, I estimate I have about another two weeks left of use in the tube. 

The full size of this product retails for $38.  I have to admit I have looked all over and I can not find the amount of product in the full size.  I know from the photos it is far larger than the trial size  so I’m guessing between 30 and 50 mL, but I couldn’t find anything that listed it. Either way, since you need so little, it should last a while.

And $38 is not bad for a product that works as nicely as this.  I’ve certainly spent more. I can’t say I’m actually surprised by how well I like it.  The primer from this line as well as the Pumpkin Turmeric 2-in-1 radiance polishing mask (and exfoliating mask) are both on my list of favorites.  The mask smells so good you almost want to eat it instead of wearing it. This foundation by the way had no real scent to it at all.

Over all, I can’t really say enough good things about this foundation.  I don’t generally go for full coverage, and to be honest I think I ended up only applying enough product for medium and a little extra rather than full on full coverage, but I didn’t see the point in adding more product, when this amount worked so beautifully. This is definitely making my list for products to repurchase.

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