Product Reviews: Besame' Souffle Foundation and Benefit Erase Paste

Besame' Souffle Foundation:
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I was very excited to try this foundation when I heard that it was available again, in a beautiful tube packaging. You may remember this product from Besame's early days, when it was in a lovely jar. I always wanted to try it and did get a chance to sample a little on the back of my hand at the My Baby Jo booth during Viva Las Vegas one year. It was like a creamy version of the Dream Mousse foundation from Maybelline...silky and easy to blend. The shade I tried at the time was 'True Beige', which was just a tad dark for my just-coming-outta-the-winter skin.

Since I have dry skin and love creamy full coverage foundations (currently I use the Revlon Colorstay liquid for Normal/Dry skin in 'buff' and I love the color, though the texture isnt my absolute favorite), I was excited to see that the foundation was being reformulated and re-released. I immediately asked for samples of the three colors that seemed best suited for my skin tone: 'Yellow Cameo' (yellow based, light beige), 'Bisque' (pink based lightest shade), and 'Medium Beige' (warm light beige for medium/olive skin tones). I tried all three shades at the jawline, which is a great place to test the blendability of different foundation colors. Unfortunately, the 'Bisque' was too light, the 'Yellow Cameo' was too yellow', and the 'Medium Beige' was too dark. Which is a shame, since the formula is fantastic. It glides on smoothly, blends easily, and provided amazing coverage for my dry skin. I love the porcelain quality it lends to my skin, especially when used in conjunction w/ a moisturizer and my favorite primer (by Senna Cosmetics). The product is also scented lightly w/ tea rose oil, which makes me always feel extra girly and feminine...like I should be lounging in my 'boudoir' as I apply it...in silk stockings.

To sum up, although I love Besame' products in general, and this one is no exception in its supreme formulation and performance capabilities, I do feel that the limited color choices will turn off many potential consumers who are used to the options available from other similarly priced brands.

Souffle Foundation is 32.00 at Besame' Cosmetics' website.
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Benefit Erase Paste:

Though I feel very fortunate not too have ever suffered much with blemishes on my skin, I have always had dark undereye circles and puffiness. I had severe allergies as a child and though I'm not as sensitive to things now as I was then, my eyes still retain the dark circles. Therefore, a good undereye concealer is a MUST for me. I used to think, as many do, that the lighter the concealer-the better, when it comes to concealing thost blue patches under the eye. But actually, light concealers, though they're excellent for 'waking up' the eye at the tear duct and for highlighting the browbone, are not ideal for concealing blue tones. They actually can accentuate them instead! In color theory, the opposite color of blue on the color wheel is orange. Therefore, a peach toned concealer will be your best bet when it comes to neutralizing undereye circles.

I've been using the Makeup Forever Concealer palette, which comes with both a green and a salmon colored corrector in the palette. Unfortunately, it's a pretty expensive item and I don't use the other colors nearly as much as that one correcting shade. Therefore I did a little research and decided to try the Benefit Erase Paste in 'Medium', which is recognized to have a very marked peach tone to it that is perfect for undereye circles.

The first thing I noticed is that the jar is a bit deep. If you have nails, you can forget getting the product on a fingertip, for application. But it does come with a little spatula for scooping...and believe me, you don't need much. A scoop about the size of a grain of rice is enough for both eyes. The consistency is very gel-like, which I prefer to the MUF product, which seemed a bit too cakey at times. I haven't noticed that it settles into fine lines at all and it's extraordinarily easy to blend. When set w/ a powder, it stays blissfully 'put' and the color, though a bit lighter than the MUF corrector, is just fine. I'm not certain how this will work on other blemishes, considering the color, but I do think the coverage quality is exceptional and due to the amount of product you get, worth every penny of the 26.00 price tag. However, if you search this product on Ebay, you can undoubtedly get it for less than 20.00, which makes it even more of a steal!

Benefit Erase Paste is available at Benefit Cosmetics's Website for 26.00. But I recommend Ebay! ;-)