L’Oreal Nude Magique Eau de Teint

A few days ago I posted a beauty shoplog and I showed you two foundations. Today I will be reviewing one of these for you: the L’Oreal Nude Magique Eau de Teint. Up until recently I only owned 1 foundation (and 2 BB creams). My history with foundation isn’t a very pleasant one. Because I have sensitive skin, most foundations cause an allergic reaction which usually happens during first use. Not much use for a review, but when I saw this in store I decided to give it a go nonetheless. It a) comes in a very light shade (hooray) and b) it’s supposed to feel like water. Those two facts combined peaked my interest and when I also got a few euros off as an introduction discount, I picked it up. Here’s how I feel about it. (Hint: it was in my January favorites).

L’Oreal Nude Magique Eau de Teint foundation 100 Porcelain

The Nude Magique Eau de Teint foundation comes in a sleek looking bottle, containing 20 ml of product. Most foundations come in 30 ml, so you get less than that. Price ranges around 15 euros, but I believe I paid 12. There are 8 shades in the entire range and this is by far the lightest I’ve seen a drugstore foundation go in a long time, though it doesn’t go very dark. I have no. 100 Porcelain and it’s the lightest shade. The lid of the bottle unscrews to reveal just an opening: there is no pump and you have to pour out the foundation. Since I haven’t tried many foundations, I don’t necessarily consider this a downside. On the back of the bottle you can find a description of how L’Oreal advises you to use the product:

You shake the bottle, then close off the opening with your finger to apply one drop of foundation which you can then put on your face. I’ve seen people pour this out on their hand and then complain that the packaging is messy. To me that seems fairly obvious as you’re not advised to do that. What I do get though, is that when I lift my finger from the opening I usually spill a few teeny tiny drops of the product onto the bottle. So it’s definitely not fool proof and if you are accident prone you may want to stay away from carpeted areas. Just saying…

L’Oreal promises the following:

L’Oréal Paris’ lightest foundation formula ever

A feather light foundation, L’Oréal Paris Nude Magique Eau de Teint Foundation SPF 18 feels as light and fresh as water. Instantly fuses with the skin blending seamlessly to leave a silky, second skin effect.

– Perfect bare skin look
– Naturally even, shine free look.
– Undetectable coverage.
– Silky soft touch.
– No make-up feel.

It IS a very light foundation. It is very wet at first but once you even it out over your skin it settles quite quickly into a powdery finish. I’m guessing that’s what they mean by the ‘silky, soft touch, no make up feel’ bit. It looks natural on and I’d say this is a sheer to light, but buildable to medium, coverage foundation. I need 4 drops to cover my face and then one or two additional drops to add a bit of cover to some of the redder areas on my face. I do like to set this with powder to make it last a bit longer, but as it dries to a powder, you do not need to do that. L’Oreal makes no promises on staying power but on my dehydrated to dry skin this foundation lasts all day. And most importantly: I’ve been using it for more than a month and I have had no allergic reactions. Yay!

On to color and texture. Like I said: the foundation is very liquid when it comes first out of the bottle. You can see that in the swatch above. The lightest color, which I have, is fairly yellow/ orange toned in these swatches, but it works a lot better on my face. I think the swatch also demonstrates nicely what I mean by a liquid to powder finish. That second swatch looks like a powder bronzer to me, rather than a liquid product. Because of this change in texture, it is advised to work quickly: dot, dot, dot and blend, blend, blend. I simply use my fingers to apply it. I tried using a brush as well, but I found that it only sucks up the product and doesn’t apply it as evenly. Oh and apparently this foundation is very similar to the Armani Maestro Fusion Make Up foundation, which costs almost 3x as much.

Left: no foundation

Middle: only on the left side

Right: applied to full face

As you can see the foundation gives a very natural effect, which evens out my skin tone but does not cancel out the redness in my face completely. You could add another layer to give it more coverage, but I don’t find it necessary in my case. Ignore the red spot above my right eyebrow. I’ve had that since forever and no amount of make up ever covers it up. This foundation does lessen it and it is not as prominent as in the first picture. The effect is not completely matte either, to me it really does look like a second layer of skin. The color is also spot on. My face is a tad darker than my neck and on the rightmost picture my face and neck look like they actually belong together.

There is one downside to this foundation though: it latches on to dry patches like a leech. Above is a close up picture of my cheek and area next to my nose. As you can see, the foundation emphasizes dry spots. So if you have dry skin, then this foundation may not be for you.

To sum it all up: I like this foundation. It works for me as it is the right color, gives me the coverage I want and doesn’t give a bad allergic reaction. It’s the first drugstore, and hence affordable, foundation to do so. Downsides are the packaging which may be impractical to some as well as the fact that it will highlight drier areas of your face. You can buy this foundation from your local drugstore now.

Full face of make up wearing L’Oreal Nude Magique Eau de Teint foundation in 100 Porcelain

For close up pictures of this completed make up look, click here.

What do you think of this foundation?