QMS Medicosmetics Active Glow Tinted Day Cream

To be honest, I wasn’t entirely certain what to expect from this product.  QMS Medicosmetics is a rather pricey brand and I’ve had my issues with them before.  The Lip Line corrector did very little for me and the eye cream was too heavy and clogged my pores rather badly. However I heard very good things about this from a cousin, who has similar skin to mine and also had issues with the eye cream.  So when I saw it as an option during Boxy Charm Choice I clicked on it.  I figured maybe the third time is the charm.

Before we get into my experiences and thoughts, let’s see what the product page has to say.

Lightweight, sheer, colour adaptive cream with vitamins. Helps to blur imperfections to reveal visibly glowing, even skin. The combination of a skin-perfecting light tint and hydrating formula make this an ideal day cream.

This sheer cream combines hydration with a complexion restoring tint.

Enriched with vitamins, this day cream is ideal for indoor days for a refreshed no-makeup, natural look or under makeup to even the complexion. Its clever tint is designed to work with every tone and its moisturizing ingredients help to firm and smooth the skin.

Ingredients

Aqua (Water), Decyl Oleate, Glyceryl Stearate, Butylene Glycol, Oryza Sativa (Rice) Bran Oil, Propylene Glycol, Isoamyl p-Methoxycinnamate, Ethylhexyl Methoxycinnamate, PEG-8 Distearate, Steareth-2, Cetearyl Alcohol, PEG-30 Stearate, Glycerin, Panthenol, Methyl Gluceth-20, Tocopheryl Acetate , Sericin , Vitis Vinifera (Grape) Seed Extract, Chlorella Vulgaris Extract, Retinyl Palmitate, Maris Aqua (Sea Water), Hydrolyzed Algin, Oryzanol, Tocopherol, Helianthus Annuus (Sunflower) Seed Oil, Galactoarabinan, Lecithin, Inulin Lauryl Carbamate, Sodium Phytate, Citric Acid, Hydrogenated Palm Glycerides Citrate, Silica, Xanthan Gum, Ascorbyl Palmitate, Glyceryl Oleate, Alcohol, PEG-40 Hydrogenated Castor Oil, Dimethicone, BHT, Parfum, Ethylhexylglycerin, Phenoxyethanol, Piroctone Olamine, Potassium Sorbate, Benzyl Salicylate, Citronellol, Eugenol, Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone, Coumarin, Linalool, Limonene, Titanium Dioxide (CI 77891), Yellow Iron Oxide (CI 77492), Red Iron Oxide (CI 77491), Black Iron Oxide (CI 77499)

QMS Medicosmetics

Normally I don’t include foundation ingredients lists (although to be fair I am not certain why I never have so maybe I will include them in the future) but it seemed like the right thing to do since skin care benefits were being claimed.

I had to try this product several different ways to see how it felt best to use this for me and to get a feel for the formula.  My skin tends to be in the what is called the normal to combination range.  In the summer I lean a little oily (especially in the t-zone) in the winter I lean a little to the dry, at least in my current climate.  I’ve lived other places where I was normal to dry year round or normal to oily year round. I really am sort of balanced on that dividing line which is why I end up with seasonal skin care.

First, let’s cover this as a day cream.  I tried it without my moisturizer under it and I tried layering it over my moisturizer. While it applied like a moisturizer, I did not like wearing it on it’s own. Without the moisturizing layer it felt oddly drying. However with the moisturizer underneath, I found I had to add less moisturizer to my skin when I followed with this.  Currently I am testing out the Dior Dream Skin Moisturizer. While I will be posting a review soon, I have used it long enough to know how it performs. 

On days without the QMS Active Glow, I used two pumps of the moisturizer, let it sit and then once absorbed went about my makeup application. If I used two pumps when I was using the QMS Active Glow, it was too much moisturizer. I’m pretty sure this is how I ended up with break outs on my chin this week.

If I used one pump of moisturizer and then applied the QMS after it absorbed, things went really well.  So I believe that the QMS Active Glow Tinted Day Cream does provide moisture to the skin, it just didn’t provide enough for my skin. Although I have no way of testing to see if the enriched vitamins were in facet absorbed I will say that with the exception of the chin break out while I was figuring out application, my skin looked and felt really good this week.

But I didn’t really use this as just a moisturizer.  I used it as my “foundation product” of the week. So how did it do in that capacity?

Well, first of all I have to say that it smells more like a foundation product than it does a moisturizer.  It smells like a healthy vitamin enriched foundation (no paint smells here) but still like a foundation product rather than a moisturizer. If I were categorizing products in a blind scent test, that is the category I would put it in, even though I am not exactly certain what the actual scent is composed of.

The tube has a pump dispenser which I like as it keeps the product away from air and light.  The pump worked easily.  I generally found I needed two pumps to cover my face.  Applying it was interesting.  It didn’t really care for the foundation brush so I applied it with my hands like a moisturizer.  This worked well. I then went in with my HUDA Beauty Sponge and made certain to smooth it out near my eyes.  That flat and pointed side was perfect for that and it was just the right light touch this product needed. 

For coverage, the tinted day cream was extremely light, but it immediately evened out my skin tone. It also made me extremely glowy.  I’m not a huge fan of the glowy look, but a quick powder took care of the glow.  I know I’m not a fan of the glow, but it felt really strange with this product. I think because it has the glow of a glowy foundation, but doesn’t react on the skin like a regular foundation.  It was almost like someone put glow drops in my moisturizer. So that I found a little strange.

However I have no other complaints.

Seriously, that was it’s one flaw.  It absorbed into the skin like a moisturizer so there was no worries about it cracking along the moving parts of the face or settling into fine lines.  It was almost non-existent on the skin in terms of feel, yet when I went to wash my face at night I found that it stuck with me throughout the day.  The even tones lasted all day and  as I applied the powder when the QMS Active Glow was still damp on the skin, it locked the loose powder into place.

It did however affect my entire makeup routine.  While I’ll get into that on Friday with my weekly Makeup bag post, most of the products I pulled this week I didn’t use because with the light coverage of this product, they felt like over kill.  I ended up using a loose setting powder with a pink tone which gave my skin all of the color it needed and then I used a light sweep of blush on my eyelids instead of eyeshadow as the eyeshadow palette I chose this week was simply too much. I also ended up switching out my lipsticks for balms and glosses.

This QMS Active Glow is perfect for a light, no makeup day, but it is not something you can build up.  I did try a foundation on top of it and in that instance the QMS felt more like a really good primer.  It gave me the even skin tone under my foundation so my foundation didn’t have to work that hard.  However, I have several primers that do just as well so it felt like a waste to just add foundation on top of this when it really worked well on its own. I do like the fact that if I was having a no makeup day and suddenly have to go somewhere I can just apply foundation on top of what I am wearing without having to scrub down, which is nice. Especially as I tend to go from working alone at my desk for long stretches of time to the occasional meeting.  Also because it is a moisturizer, it didn’t really have any issues rubbing off on my mask, which was extra nice.

I have to say in the end I am quite pleased to have this product in my collection.  It threw off my entire makeup bag this week, but it is going to be well used.  Because the tint is so light and designed to be used by multiple skin tones, I can use it year round without having to find a different shade and my skin reacted well to it.  The glow part I didn’t care for but it was very easily toned down into something wearable and I can see this being pulled out of my dressing table a lot in the future. Because of it, I don’t have an eyeshadow palette review ready to post right after this, because I really didn’t get to wear the eyeshadow this week. But I consider that a small sacrifice (and I’ll fill in a different post later this afternoon).  Apparently with QMS Medicosmeticals, the third time really was the charm. As long as the rest of my wek doesn’t start to resemble the Goldilocks story, I can live with that.

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