Drugstore Foundation Battle

L’Oreal, Covergirl, & Flower Beauty

Not to be dramatic – BUT one of the worst feelings has to be finding out that one of your staple, ride or die, favorite beauty products is getting the axe. Discontinued is just a dirty word around here. Maybe you had time to prepare and gets back-ups and maybe you didn’t. Regardless, it’s such a bummer when your tried-and-true is gone forever. This inevitable scenario just happened to my longtime drugstore foundation favorite – the L’Oreal Lumi Cushion. If you saw my travel beauty post, you know I’ve lived off this foundation! I loved it because it was dewy enough, looked natural, and was great to mix with others. I’ve been through the stages of grief and now it’s time to accept it and move on. I’m still pretty much looking for the same damn thing so I thought I’d see if any of the new hyped up foundations from L’Oreal, Covergirl, and Flower Beauty would do the trick. Keep reading for my thoughts on each!

L’Oreal

L’Oreal, I’m kinda mad at you right now, but this new Infallible 24-hr foundation has pretty much taken over the beauty community at the moment. I picked up 3 shades they recommend for neutral undertones and got to work. It seems like beauty gurus with every kind of skin type and tone are raving about this right now. They’re offering 30 shades in the range and it’s $15 for this long-lasting, natural finish foundation.

I’m personally having a hard time jumping on this bandwagon. First off – I’m really shocked none of these shades worked for me. I only bought 1-2 shades of the other foundations and those all worked great. It is full coverage so it’s more important to get a good match. Somehow, none of the undertones looked quite right on me. The 455 shade especially came off very pink on me. I do think it oxidized a little bit, so I might suggest going a shade lighter if you’re checking this out! They do have two more (supposedly) lighter neutral shades, so I may pick one of those up at some point – but I’m not really in any hurry after testing these!

If you have drier skin I’d be surprised if this is your favorite formula. I really had to put in some effort and prep my skin for it not to look dry and settled by the end of the day. Even then I don’t think this felt as lightweight as some of the other foundations on this list. This isn’t the worst foundation I’ve ever used, but I just don’t see myself reaching for it regularly with the extra work it requires.

Covergirl

Since Covergirl just surprised everyone by getting their Leaping Bunny certification I really wanted to fall in love with one of their foundations and support the biggest cruelty-free beauty brand. I picked up TruBlend Matte Made because I’ve heard it’s a nice coverage and is not actually super matte. KathleenLights chose their Healthy Elixir foundation as one of her favorite drugstore foundations so I also decided to grab that since we both have pretty dry skin. At $12 each these were the cheapest of bunch, but they still come with the nice pump bottle!

-TruBlend

I typically stay far away from anything described as matte, but after hearing this foundation was more of a natural satin finish, I thought I’d give it a go. CoverGirl didn’t seem to make a lot of outlandish claims here, just that it won’t look dry or cakey. Sign me up! I have to say this foundation worked beautifully with my skin – even while running around through the longest of shifts. I wouldn’t go as far as to say it’s luminous on its own, so I was surprised that I like it as much as I do. This has to feel like one of the lightest foundations I’ve ever used. I do love that it can still get to a nice medium, build-able coverage. I’ve been using a hydrating/luminous primer mostly with this, but it doesn’t need it (like the L’oreal). I can definitely see this being my go-to foundation for the summertime.

-Healthy Elixir

Crusty and dusty are two words I’d like to never describe myself by, but this foundation sure didn’t help that. The Healthy Elixir looked so bad on my skin by the end of my workday – I don’t even know how to sugarcoat it. After being scarred by that experience, it took me a couple weeks to want to try it again. Frankly, even then I kind of sabotaged my test by mixing other foundations together. This was the only foundation that just really confused me. I figured with only 7 shades and claiming a lightweight vitamin-infused formula, this was going to be a pretty sheer, natural foundation. There was definitely no “luminous glow” that they claimed here.

Flower Beauty

I’ve actually never tried Drew Barrymore’s line until now! At first glance, their Light Illusion foundation wins for packaging. The bottle has a good weight to it and just looks a little nicer. Thankfully, the foundation formula also didn’t disappoint. They only had four or five shades at the Ulta I went to, but Natural Beige (just a touch lighter than the CoverGirl M90!) ended up being a pretty solid match. They do actually have 15 shades online, so that’s slightly better than what I saw, but obviously no where close to the main Covergirl/L’Oreal lineup.

As far as formula goes, this is definitely the most similar to the Lumi foundation I am replacing. It looks super natural on the skin and is nice and dewy. If you have dry skin I think this would be your favorite of the bunch. I definitely agree with the brand claims that it’s a lightweight, comfortable foundation that can give a good medium coverage. It kept looking great all day long and is just $14!

And the winner is….

I ended up keeping both the Covergirl TruBlend and Flower Light Illusion foundations. The Flower formula is the most similar to the Lumi foundation I was looking to replace, but I’m in love with the Covergil TruBlend too! I’ve been using a light layer of the TruBlend at work this week and have gotten some compliments on how smooth my skin looks. This whole experience has made me think maybe I should keep diving into drugstore options more often. Do you have a favorite drugstore foundation? It seriously feels like there’s a new foundation dropping everyday now! I’m still hoping to test out some from Catrice and Maybelline next.