Sun on your face
Summer foundation strategies for when you accidentally get a tan. By Harriet Pudney.
My number one piece of beauty advice is to wear sunscreen. You’re sick of hearing it, I’m sure, but out of concern for both your skin and your health I’m going to keep carrying on about it. SPF50 from forehead to chest, ears included, is the bare minimum for every day.
However, even with the best intentions and the most diligent sunscreen reapplications, it’s hard to spend any significant amount of time outdoors in summer and not catch a bit of sun. I’ve currently got twice as many freckles as usual, and the tinted moisturiser I bought in October makes me look ridiculous. Far too pale. I have friends who can go out for a long walk on a sunny day and come home needing a new foundation. It’s a hassle, to say the least, and especially annoying when you know you’ve taken all the right precautions.
What’s required is a plan of attack. Strategies, if you will, for when you get a tan through no fault of your own. The way I see it, you can either replace your foundation, or if the shade difference isn’t too extreme, work with a bit of bronzer. Either way should see you through until the weather cools down again.
If you’re looking to go down the newfoundation path, you might not want to spend up large since this is just an interim measure. At $27, Maybelline Fit Me Matte + Poreless foundation is hard to beat on that front. Happily, it’s also consistently well-reviewed, especially by people whose skin tends to be oilier rather than drier. It’s lightweight, long-lasting, and comes in a good shade range – as long as you’re not expecting it to perform like a $130 foundation, you’ll have a good time. Better than it has any right to be, considering you can buy it at the supermarket.
Alternatively, you could opt for a tinted moisturiser or BB cream. Less coverage is always nice in summer, plus, a sheer base is more forgiving of a tan that comes and goes. Try La RochePosay Uvidea BB Cream,
$39, or Bare Minerals Complexion Rescue Tinted Hydrating Gel Cream, $55. Both have extremely wordy names but are worth your attention anyway: dewy, bouncy, just enough coverage. The Bare Minerals one comes in about a million more shades, so that may be your decision made. They do both contain SPF, but if you used enough to give yourself proper protection, you’d have way too much coverage. Wear normal sunscreen underneath.
If you’re not so tanned as to have completely sprinted away from your usual base, you might be able to swing it with some bronzer. In summer, I hate layering powder products onto my skin. It just feels like too much bulk. Good news, then, that there are so many excellent cream bronzers out there at the moment. The gold standard is RMS Beauty Buriti Bronzer, $48, which is made with coconut oil and melts into skin like nothing else. Apply this with your fingers along cheekbones, the bridge of your nose, and into your hairline, and as long as your slightly-too-fair base isn’t super high-coverage, you’ll be sussed. This is also really nice blended onto eyelids for a bit of sheeny colour.
Another option would be to so slightly off-label with a contour stick, as long as the colour pulls tan rather than grey on your skin. Try the Benefit Hoola Quickie Contour Stick,
$55, or Sephora’s housebrand Colour & Sculpt Stick, $22. These are designed to be used with precision, to carve out cheekbones and narrow noses, but if you dot them on where the sun hits your face and blend out with a fluffy brush, they’ll behave just as agreeably as a bronzer. Heat and humidity are your friends here, as the warmth of your skin will help these products blend into your base. You might also like to spritz a face mist over top to encourage them to make friends.