Makeover Monday: BB Cream

Hey, who remembers when I used to do Makeover Mondays?

That's okay, I barely remember it. The last one I did was, I believe, when I was pregnant, and it was a "home edition" so I could show off the nursery. The last makeup Makeover Monday was ... well, it was a really, really long time ago.

But! I have something I want to talk about (for once!) and thought it would be a perfect MM topic. Let's talk about BB cream.

(This isn't a sponsored post, but the Amazon links are affiliate links.)

I keep hearing about BB cream, mostly from my Twitter friends who get Birchboxes, because I guess there were a lot of people getting BB cream samples. I'd never heard of it before and I'm still not 100% sure what it is. I guess it's, like, a foundation-moisturizer combo cream? And it's supposed to help fight blemishes and even out your skin tone even though it has none of the traditional acne-fighting ingredients in it? Or something?

My current daily makeup arsenal looks like this:

That's a lot of stuff. From top to bottom/left to right:

- Moisturizer (Boots No 7 Rebalancing Day Gel, because I find cream moisturizers to be too heavy in the summer when topped with makeup)
-  Bare Escentuals Original SPF 15 Foundation in Light
- Cover Girl Fresh Complexion Concealer in some color of Ivory -- the sticker has fallen off the bottom I know it's an Ivory and I'm usually the second palest shade (Sometimes I'll use Bare Escentuals concealer in Well-Rested, which is meant for under your eyes only but I'm fair enough that if I top it with foundation I can use it on pimples too. But honestly, I get equal coverage from the Cover Girl stuff, and it's cheaper, so.)
- Bare Escentuals All-Over Face Color in Pure Radiance (I usually use Bare Radiance, but Ulta was out. Pure Radiance isn't really enough color for me in the summer.)
- Bare Escentuals Blush in Hint (I can't find this on their site or on Ulta.com, so maybe it's been discontinued? It's basically just a shimmery pink color.)
- Bare Escentuals SPF 25 Mineral Veil, untinted
- Smashbox Browtech To Go in Brunette
- Revlon Color Stay Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stain in Honey (To be honest, I usually use Mac Blankety, but I recently heard about this balm stain and thought I'd try it. It's a lot darker than the Blankety, which is a very true-for-me nude, but I like it.)

Eight items. That's a lot. I kept hearing about BB cream and thought maybe it would knock a bunch of those steps out of my routine. So I went out and got myself some.

There are probably better ones out there, but this was what I was able to find that wasn't too expensive and came in the color I needed. (I've heard good things about L'Oreal's, too, but every place I looked only had it in super-pale or super-dark.)

(Of course, when I went to Ulta later to get my brow pencil, I got a free sample of a Smashbox BB Cream. I've tried both, they seem to be about the same, so I'll stick with the cheaper one for regular use.)

I decided to do a little experiment. I am currently kind of broken out thanks to the heat and how much I've been sweating when I take the dog on his walks, so I thought I'd do a before-and-after for you with both the BB cream and my regular arsenal.

(I never let anyone see me with no makeup on except Kevin. And now, apparently, the Internet. Oops.)

Here I am, fresh out of the shower, nothing whatever on my face. You can see I've got some blemishes:

(That one on the right is actually a patch of dark spots from pimples I had a few weeks ago. That's the problem with being fair-skinned, the spots stay forever. Even if I don't mess with them. Which I usually do, but I really tried not to with these.)

I mean, I'm not disgustingly pizza-faced or anything, but I've got some spots that need covering. Also please note the dark circles under my eyes, courtesy of baby-who-will-not-sleep and dog-who-licks-himself-all-damn-night. (Seriously, the LICKING, you guys. SO GROSS. SO LOUD.)

Okay, so. I decided to do half my face with my regular routine, and half with the BB cream taking the place of the moisturizer, foundation, concealer, and Pure Radiance. The result?

I ... can't tell a difference. (Except for the under-eye circles. The concealer [left side of the picture] worked better than the BB cream.) (Also, I don't know why I didn't smile here. I thought I was smiling. Obviously I was not.)

I did my regular makeup on the side that has the dark spots and the particularly unpleasant zit under my lip. You can't see the zit anymore, really, but you can still see the dark spots through a layer of concealer and foundation.

The BB cream side, you can still see the spot on my chin, right at the edge, and there's apparently a pimple under my lip that I didn't notice till I took these pictures. But really, they're not covered any better or worse than the regular-makeup side's spots.

And look how much less stuff this side used:

That's the BB cream, mineral veil (because I still feel like the cream needs powder to set it a bit), brow stuff, lip stain. Four items. That's a much faster, cheaper, less-producty way to put my face on for regular day-to-day stuff than my normal routine.

Oh, wait. I forgot I used my blush here too and forgot to put it in the picture. Okay, five items. That's still fewer than eight.

I put on just the BB cream before I took the dog out this morning. I splashed my face with water, but didn't wash it (I don't bother until I shower after we go out, because it would be a waste of face wash in this heat), put on the BB cream, took the dog outside for about 30 minutes, then came in and took this picture before I got in the shower:

Not too bad, considering I sweated disgustingly for half an hour, then wiped my face on a paper towel when I got in, then took this picture. My skin tone is still a lot more even than it is with nothing on it, and I was surprised by how little makeup rubbed off onto the paper towel even though I didn't set it with powder.

I think when I have a really ugly pimple, I will also use concealer, but for day-to-day wear? I think the BB cream might be a better way to go than my regular makeup. My only concern is whether or not my skin will react to it after using it for a few days -- cream foundation usually makes me break out, but maybe the BB cream will be lighter than cream foundation and won't do that? We shall see.

And, because I know why everyone really comes here, here's a picture of Lorelai determinedly smooshing a Ritz cracker.