REVIEW: L'oreal Studio Secrets Professional Color Correcting Primer

03/22/2010

$12.99 at Ulta. Possibly less at Target/Walmart.


If you've ever used the crazy looking little green twist up concealers, then you get the basic gist of this product. We're going back to the color wheel, folks, where opposite colors cancel one another out... and green, in theory, cancels out all the redness of problematic skin.

I never really had luck with the little green concealers that resembled martian lipstick, as the texture and consistency was a little heavy, which always made my foundation retain a little bit of a greenish sheen... which is most definitely not what I'm going for with this whole color correction idea. So, yeah, that was a fail.

But, I saw this product and thought I'd give it a try. It works not only as a color corrector but also a foundation primer, smoothing over the face to create a nice canvas for whatever foundation comes next. I've been using a "GOSH" brand primer lately, which I've had to buy on E-bay due to unavailability here... and really, that just becomes a bit of a pain... especially if I could just go to Target and try something else instead.

I've been using this for about a week, and I do absolutely love it. It's creamy, it's light, it's smoothing, and it DOES do a nice job playing down the red in my skin. Now, this isn't thick, and it isn't a concealer, so it really doesn't do a ton for the actual tops of breakouts. But, it works wonders for the areas around them, and for any redness in the forehead, around the nose, etc.

While this isn't as heavy as the "lipstick" concealers, I still probably wouldn't pair this with a super sheer foundation, just in fear that the green may alter the color a tad bit. I haven't actually experienced this with any of my foundations, and I've tried a few, but I also don't tend to use anything really, really sheer, so use caution there. (Although, I'm guessing if you're concerned enough about redness to seek out a correcting product that you may be choosing something a notch above "sheer").

I find myself using a little less concealer with this product, as I save the concealer for the actual breakouts and let the primer + foundation due its duty on the rest. That's always a thumbs up in my book. At $12.99, this product seems a little high for the amount of product you get (the bottle is pretty small... definitely go look at it in the store before ordering online), but I do think a little goes a long way, so it should last a decent amount of time.

I noticed the store had two other variations.. a pink primer to illuminate fair, dull skin and an apricot to illuminate medium/darker dull skin. I didn't try those, so I have no comment there, but they were $12.99 as well. I'll probably try the pink primer in the future, but for now I'm pretty happy with the green one I'm using thus far.

Alrightie, just a quick review. Thanks for reading. If anyone's tried this one, let me know below! Have a great day!