I was beyond sad when I left my boyfriend at the airport last week, so I decided to splurge on one last makeup item in the Duty Free store before starting my No Buy. I haven't used much Dior besides the lash primer, and I've been curious about their base products, so I went straight for this BB cream. Not only did it offer a bit of sun protection and the lighter coverage I prefer, but it also came in an incredibly light shade, 001 Light. (The second shade is 002 Fair, but don't be fooled: 001 is definitely lighter.) It swatched beautifully on my N5-ish jaw, so I didn't hesitate to plonk down the $44.
The packaging for this BB is absolutely flawless: it's a squeeze tube, meaning you can squish out every last drop of product, and it has a pump, which makes it more sanitary. It's very easy to control how much comes out of the pump; I was able to disperse a pump-and-a-half of product to cover my face and the top of my neck without trouble.
The product itself is a very smooth, creamy foundation that feels beautiful when blended on to the skin. I was able to smooth it on with my hands and with a brush without trouble, and I found that it had the same amount of coverage regardless of what method I used: more than most tinted moisturizers, but less than a medium-coverage foundation, with a slight dewy finish. My zits and undereye circles were "softened," but not completely covered.
It absolutely reeks of cheap cucumber melon perfume, though, which I found appalling; if you're going to advertise a product as part skincare, you shouldn't load it up with fragrance. Furthermore, if you're going to claim that a product's main purpose is sun protection--as the back of this product's box claims--you seriously need to do better than SPF10.
At first, I was 95% thrilled with how this product looked on my skin. Although I knew it was a smidge too pink from the get-go, I didn't think it was horribly noticeable, even in these HD photographs. Cream and powder products blend over it very well, and it doesn't transfer on to my clothing. But I also realized that this wasn't a product for certain skin types.
I'm a little sorry for this Super Creepy HD shot of my nose, but I think it illustrates an important point: this is NOT a product for oily skin. I took this picture immediately after applying the product to my oily nose, and you can see that it's already greasy, with the product separating and migrating to my pores. I didn't powder for the sake of this review, but if you have combination skin, you'll want to powder this product down, and if you have straight-up oily skin? It's not the product for you.
Now, it looked absolutely beautiful on the rest of my face, which is quite dry, except for a few spots...
...spots with flaking or textural issues. This close-up shows how lovely the DiorSkin Nude BB Cream looks on areas that are dry-but-smooth, but it also shows the minor flakes on my cheeks and at the corner of my mouth being emphasized. And yes, these are minor flakes brought on by using acne spot treatments, not instances of prolonged textural issues. Hence, I would only recommend this product to people with normal to dry skin and no texture issues.
But again, 95% thrilled! It had the perfect amount of coverage for me, felt nice on my skin, and looked great on 3/4 of my face. And I have no problem powdering and priming my nose, since it's the one "really weird" part of my face. I was willing to overlook the terrible smell and slight pinkness because of how convenient this BB cream would be for my needs, seeing as I travel long distances to work and prefer to do my makeup on-site on those days.
Alas, it was not to be. Not only does this product completely break down on my oily nose (so much so that even blotting powder couldn't save it), but it also darkens up and gets more pink after about 20 minutes. You can really see this happening in the natural light picture on the right: my neck is about N5, and the BB cream has darkened to NW15-20. Many reviews for this product mention the same "darkening" effect, and some foundations are just formulated in such a way that they will get darker shortly after application. This was quite a shade jump, though, seeing as it went from about NW5 to NW15--two full shades darker. If you want to try this product, I highly recommend requesting a sample first.
So alas, this product didn't work for me, and the people it will work for are a small group. While it will probably look beautiful on those people, it's also going to give very little sun protection (regardless of what its advertising states) and reek to high Heaven. Color me disappointed...and two shades too dark.
RATING: 3 out of 5
Note: the Dolce & Gabbana Creamy foundation applies lighter than it swatches. Koh Gen Do Manifashi Moisture foundation oxidized on me, but doesn't on most people.
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