Catrice True Skin foundation review

You know I will be all over that thing when Catrice launches a new foundation. Generally I like their foundations but their more popular ranges are aimed at normal to oily skin types which means they aren’t great for me. I have lots of reviews up with many of the different foundations that have come out over the years, but my favorite till this day has to be the by now discontinued HD Liquid Radiance foundation. However I also quite enjoyed their more recent Clean ID BB Cream which I tried over the summer period. Let’s see how the True Skin works now that I have tried it every day for more than a week.

If you want to know how I feel about this foundation trying it again a year later, then please scroll to the end of the blog post where I have written my update after trying a new shade in 2021!

Review: Catrice True Skin Hydrating Foundation 002 Neutral Ivory

The Catrice True Skin foundation is one with a lot of promises. The price point is of course on point as is always the case with Catrice products: just €6.99 is what this puppy will cost you. Catrice isn’t a brand known for its shade range but this is available in 21 shades in total. You may have to go online for that though. Here in The Netherlands the shades available have been slimmed down drastically as we only get a whooping 6 shades: all of them super light. When will Catrice learn? They have 21 shades but then don’t make them widely available: what’s up with that?

What does this foundation have to offer?

So I said this comes with claims, let’s go over them. This is supposed to be a lightweight, hydrating foundation with hyaluronic acid and watermelon seed extract. It should combat redness and smooth out your skin tone evenly while giving a radiant matte finish. Coverage should be medium to buildable full coverage while not looking makeuppy and cakey and feeling comfortable on the skin. Which claims does this foundation make good on? Definitely on the comfort, finish and coverage. Not so much on the hydrating and natural looking finish.

How does this foundation swatch?

Let’s look at a hand swatch first. While that doesn’t tell the whole story it can be helpful to clearly show you the texture and blendability of this foundation. With this, a little goes a long way: this is a very pigmented foundation. It is very watery but due to the high pigmentation you only need a little bit. The pump is a bit annoying to use and gets stuck quite often and it is difficult to push it all the way down. Once blended in you can see this foundation has some luminosity to it, but when fully blended into the skin I don’t really like the way it sits on my skin. It emphasizes lines and it is a foundation that is difficult to get to look fully even: it shows brush and sponge marks and emphasizes texture very quickly.

What does this foundation look like on the skin?

Apart from a swatch, we of course need to see what the coverage is actually like. With just 3/4 of a pump I am able to cover my entire face. As you can see I have quite a bit of redness in my skin and the foundation has no issues covering that up. It is very lightweight and blendable but it takes a bit of effort to get this foundation to look smooth and even on the skin. I do find that well-moisturized skin is needed if you have dry skin like mine to make this foundation look good. It looks best on very plump looking skin: I don’t think this foundation is as hydrating as it claims to be.

What is the shade match like?

The shade I bought is 002 Neutral Ivory. When I bought this, there were no swatches out anywhere so it was a complete gamble. I think the shade is just a touch or 2 too light for me. This will be a great winter time shade for me though. And while too light, with the rest of my makeup done and some bronzer blended down my neck this really doesn’t look too bad. I have been mainly wearing high neck sweaters the past two weeks so it’s not as if you can truly tell where my foundation ends. Also, my neck has been a bit splotchy and red looking as I have a bit of a skin issue ever since lockdown started. So it is not fully the foundation’s fault.

My final thoughts

The Catrice True Skin foundation is one I really wanted to love, but alas: it is not my favorite. Is it a good foundation? I think this is nice for people with normal to oily skin, but for my dry skin this just isn’t great. Especially in this final picture I feel you can see the makeup sitting on my nose and my chin more than I would want and this is also where the foundation has trouble staying put. It is almost as if it doesn’t want to stick down in some areas of my face. In the end it is longwearing enough: I can wear this all day and then head to the gym wearing this and it wears down okay. It doesn’t fully survive a sweaty workout class though and I have had this foundation pulling into all the lines of my face on the days where I decided to keep it on for the testing of this foundation.

Would I recommend the Catrice True Skin foundation?

This is a difficult question for me to answer. Because while this is an okay foundation, I don’t think it is anything revolutionary. It just doesn’t suit my skin type all that grant: if this would have been a less mattifying foundation and more hydrating this could have looked lovely on my skin. However, Catrice has a tendency to cater to normal to oily skin mostly with their foundation ranges and so I could have known this would not be the best for me. I will just be sticking to my HD Radiant Liquid for now. However, if you are looking for an affordable foundation this could be nice if your skin is much oilier than mine. That said, though with just 6 shades available in some places, it may be difficult to find your shade.

What is the last disappointing item you tried?

Catrice True Skin Foundation review update 2021

So as you can read here I wasn’t too happy with the Catrice True Skin foundation when I first tried it. But I saw this product getting so much hype that I decided to try it again when the brand didn’t launch any new complexion products in their most recent update. I felt I was missing out, bought a different shade and decided to try again! Here’s how that went.

So what I decided to do was to repurchase the foundation in a darker shade. I mainly felt one of the reasons the first one wasn’t working was because it made me look ghostly pale. And I think this foundation shows quite easily how important it is that we get the right shade. Because now that I have bought this in a darker shade I feel much happier about using it. Sadly I decluttered my first bottle earlier this year, so I cannot show you a comparative swatch.

Already when I first swatched this shade, I felt it was a much better fit. I feel this version also feels a little less dry? I am not entirely sure, but my main problem with the original bottle I tried was that I had some good makeup days and some not so great ones as the foundation looked dry and cakey. I now feel it was mainly down to the shade and not so much the actual texture of the foundation. Because the shade was off it may not have looked the best to begin with.

With this foundation I would therefore recommend going for a deeper shade than you might think. Not only does it seem to perform better now, it also blends more seamlessly into my skin. It looks a tad too dark in this picture here, but I feel that once all of my makeup is finished that this looks much better than the previous shade. I think I just got so used over the years to having to always order the lightest shade and it still being too dark for me, that I thought that would be the case here too. But no: this shade is a near perfect match!

I think you can also clearly see how much better this looks in this side by side look. As you can see the foundation looks much more natural and less makeuppy simply because the shade is much better. Now if I have to give it one more critique it would be that this shade is a touch too yellow for my skin tone but again, with the rest of my makeup done it looks barely noticeable. As I wore this for a full week straight I never found this too look cakey like I did with the previous one either. So either my skin is less dry this time round (I tried the previous one in October too) or simply the fact that the shade is better makes it so much easier to pull it off.

Overall, I am glad I tried this foundation again. A different shade worked wonders for me and I feel this looks much more natural and feels much better too. It is still as longlasting and I feel I was able to make it work so much better. My main critique last year was that this foundation just wasn’t great with my skin type, but I feel that this year this foundation and my skin got along a lot better. This still isn’t my favorite foundation Catrice has ever done, but I think it is good enough and I can see now why so many people gave this product rave reviews. So I didn’t change my mind completely, but I can now see what the hype is all about.

What is a product you tried again and then liked much better?