REVIEW AND SWATCHES: BECCA Colour Correctors & Concealer Creme

ITEM: BECCA Cosmetics Backlight Targeted Colour Correctors and Ultimate Coverage Concealing Creme (U.S. Price and Link - Concealer HERE & Corrector HERE)
PRICE: $50AUD - same for both Concealer & Corrector (Price on sephora.com.au)

So I was lucky enough to get a gorgeous delivery from BECCA Cosmetics. This time round they sent me their new pot concealers and correctors. I have been super busy doing full time work, so I haven't had the chance to write my blog post on the products. However! Since I have been super busy, I haven't frequently sported full face of makeup, but instead concealed areas and VOILA! I would walk out the door. I have also been getting a fair amount of redness on my face in various places so I needed to conceal those suckers well. And inevitably, full time work plus full time study plus 100 other commitments will always end in dark circles that need the assistance of a good corrector. So this season in my life has been perfect to test out these products.

Okay so let's start with the colours that I got and swatches. I received all the shades for the colour correctors, but only four of the concealers. However please note that there are actually 12 shades in the entire line. They really range from very very fair tones to very very deep tones. Banana (my lightest shade) is the second lightest shade in the range, and Treacle (my darkest shade) is the second darkest in the range). So as you can see from the swatches below, these are very fair and very dark shades, so there is a good chance that you will find your colour in the range. 

Left to Right:
Banana - Macadamia - Toffee - Treacle 

If there is one flaw about the colours in the range for people, it would be the fact that the colours are quite yellow based. The ones I received were quite yellow based anyway. For me, this is not a complaint in the slightest. In fact it's something that really draws me to the product. I am the same colour as the Simpsons, so the more yellow, the better. But I understand that this is something that a lot of people find frustrating about specific lines so it was something that I wanted to draw your attention to. 

For the below correctors, please note that I hadn't used Papaya before and so it looks quite shiny and wet because it was the very first layer which was strangely thin and "wet" feeling. However once you actually start using the product, it becomes more creamy and pigmented.

Left to Right:
Violet - Pistachio - Peach - Papaya

So moving onto the packaging. The packaging is absolutely gorgeous, luxurious and amazing. It is a frosted glass which holds the product, a screw on cap (that looks virtually the same as the foundation one - just smaller), and is very small and compact. It is however quite weighted. It is not light. That, and the fact that it is made of glass, potentially means that it will not be travel-friendly. I still appreciate this kind of packaging though.

Moving onto the actual product. So I have always had an aversion to pot concealers because I have super dry skin, and pot concealers tend to be a dry formula that accentuates dryness and flakes. On top of the dryness, lately I have had a red spot on my cheek that has a lot of white flakiness. I was really reluctant to use this but I knew I had to if I wanted to give a well-rounded review. I put my finger into the product and was immediately blown away. The consistency was not dry at all - it was super smooth, creamy and not stiff at all. It was silky and really really pleasant to the touch.

I then put it on my face and the coverage was insane! It completely covered the redness with one layer. I couldn't believe it and I also felt like it was moisturising on the skin and it did NOT accentuate the flakes. The product was so emollient and 'oily' (in a good way not a gross bad way), and it would hydrate my skin, look matte, give full on coverage, and did not accentuate my dryness or the flakes. This was true for the entire day - not just the minute that I put it on. I usually get really frustrated throughout the day with concealers and foundations because after about 6 hours I can feel like skin starting to pull and the product completely dehydrating my face. However this would last from 7am to 10pm without even reminding me that I had makeup on my face. It was really really good. The finish is definitely a matte finish and the product lasts a very very long time without even as much as fading.

So as a summary of what I love is the packaging, the colours, the coverage, the hydration, the long-lasting nature of the product and the finish.

However there are a few cons I feel the need to point out about the product. The smell is the first one. I have redness around my nose and so I put the concealer around my nose area and straight away I noticed a very strong smell. It was quite a chemical smell mixed with old school lipstick smells. There was no way I could say that it was a pleasant smell. This in and of itself does not prevent me from using a product - I mean I used the Urban Decay NAKED Skin Concealer and that smell is much worse.

Another flaw however is the consistency and blendability of the product. The concealer itself is emollient and creamy but it's extremely thick. You may not realise it when you put your finger into the product and rub, but once you go to put the product onto your face and blend, the thickness is super obvious. It is so thick that it is a difficult product to blend. I have always used it with my fingers (and the warmth of your fingers should melt down the product a bit), and even then it was hard to blend. I would really need to press hard onto my face and melt the product to spread it out. I would also need to work super quickly so I could use it and blend it while it was still emollient. It does set pretty quickly in my opinion. So for a lot of people, this may pose a challenge in using the product. I think one of the biggest dislikes I have heard about the product is that it is so thick.

The strange thing for me is that even when it is thick, I don't feel it on my face. At first, I obviously do but within about 10 minutes it feels weightless. But that could be my unique experience with the product.

The final thing about the product is that it accentuated my pores. I think this can be strongly linked to the thickness of the product. As I said at the start of this post, I was using this product as a quick on the go product most of the time. That means that I was often using this with no foundation, no primer etc. I simply patted some onto red areas on my face and ran out the door. Because I had nothing underneath, I really noticed that the areas with the concealer had more obvious pores. Now, I don't naturally have very visible pores, and so I am not saying that this product suddenly made it look like I have huge ditches in my skin, but it did accentuate them a bit more than I am used to. I would look in a standard mirror up close, and noticed that I could see them. So if you naturally have large pores this product alone will accentuate your pores. However when I used this with a pore-filling primer and foundation, I didn't notice this issue.

I know that this was heavily focused on the concealer rather than the correctors, but my experience was similar with the correctors. However these were the minor differences:

• The corrector was not as full on coverage - they were more a light to medium coverage than the concealers. However if you read how BECCA recommends you use the correctors, they do suggest to always use a concealer and/or foundation with the correctors and when I did that, it made a big difference.
• The smell isn't as pungent with the correctors.
• The correctors only come in a limited shade range so might be too intense or not intense enough for different skin tones. But in my opinion, since they are meant to be used underneath a concealer or foundation, these should work for almost everyone.

In reading this, please remember that correctors are not supposed to be used in the same way as concealers. Correctors are for underneath products simply to colour correct. That is, if you have pigmentation in your skin, or if you have dark under eye circles, or if you have redness on your face, then you can use the correctors just to balance out the colour for a more flawless foundation/concealer application. So please note that the sheer coverage or the slightly thinner consistency of the correctors are not a flaw and are not a drawback on the product. It is exactly how I expected the product to perform. 

Overall: I love the packaging. I love how both perform (although they perform differently, they fulfil their individual roles very well). I love the finish. I love how they don't dry out my skin. However I really don't like that they accentuate my pores, that it can be slightly difficult to blend and... that smell. The smell really caught me off guard. 

Rating: 7.5/10