I was so stoked to see these new formulations of the fitme foundation pop up for sale in my shade on trademe. 110 is the lightest shade, and while readily available overseas is extremely hard to come by in New Zealand. It is a wee bit light for me in summer but is a perfect fit for me in winter. Fitme foundation was the first foundation I ever used (some 15 years ago! ) and was one I really liked at the time. After hearing such great things about the new formulations I was extremely excited to try these out.
Dewy and smooth was an absolute dream to apply- I used my flathead kabuki brush for this. I found that I needed to use a pore filling primer with this, but because this is such a dewy formulation I didn't feel like I also needed a moisturizing primer. The coverage of this is medium, certainly not enough to give me any coverage over my acne. The finish is what it says on the bottle-dewy, but not overly shiny. While I don't have oily skin, I did find that this got oily on my nose after being on my skin for a few hours. I tried this foundation with powder to set, and without. I found that if I didn't set with powder, that I only had about 4 hours of wear time. However I found that if I did set with powder, that I had a lot of settling in my fine lines and wrinkles- not a good look.
Matte and Poreless was a bit unpredictable for me. I found that despite its claims, that I needed to use a porefilling or smoothing primer underneath. However I still found that this foundation settled into my pores, particularly when it was hot. I found that you had to be rather quick with your application as this formula set rather quickly on the skin. I didn't find that this highlighted any dry patches like some matte foundations do, which was nice. The longevity of this formula was a little better than the dewy and smooth, however I still felt that this was medium coverage, and trying to build up the coverage anymore only led to cakiness.
While I do think that these are great entry level foundations, they simply didn't work for my skin- not enough coverage and not very flattering on my large pores. It also really bothers me that the lightest shade concealer in the fitme range is darker than this foundation- what gives Maybelline?! I will continue to use these and experiment with different primers however, as I love the shade range.
I'm not 100% sure that I really like this foundation for a few reasons. Firstly, the packaging isn't great, and it is so easy to pour out way too much product as there is no pump. It doesn't have a very nice smell either, but it fades away quite soon after being applied. I also found that it doesn't give very good coverage at all, and it moved around a lot on my face and went very patchy, although this could be because I have oily skin. Its also kind of hard to apply nicely with a brush, I found that a beauty blender made it look nicer. It didn't oxidise as much as I thought it would, but it still does a little bit. Maybe it is better suited to those with drier skin? But its not really my cup of tea.
Tips: Definitely use a beauty blender or a sponge, and set with a powder or setting spray.