Powder foundations are celebrating a comeback and I could not be happier. I jumped on the bandwagon a long time ago with the Fenty Powder foundation but can we find a more affordable option? Let's see.
The Rimmel London Lasting Finish Buildable Coverage Powder Foundation is a lightweight, soft-touch foundation that controls shine without feeling dry. It blurs, provides buildable natural medium coverage that is supposed to be longlasting and comes in 12 shades. I have the shade 002 Pearl. It is transfer proof, sweat and water resistant, vegan and non-comedogenic. It is suitable for sensitive skin and all skin types. It retails for roughly $12.
The foundation comes in a compact with a mirror and an applicator sponge that can be used to apply it or touch ups. I personally do not like these for either application or touch ups and I think that puffs or brushes are way better for applying powder foundations. It also has a mirror which is very convinient. You get 10g of product inside. The shade Pearl that I have is supposed to be second lightest but honestly it's way darker than I expected it to be. I make it work but even based on the images online I thought it's going to be much lighter.
The shade range is quite bad and the deep/dark part of the shade range could use a lot of work. The darkest shade is really not that dark at all which is a shame because it's not very common to find affordable powder foundations altogether.
Wear test
I applied the powder foundation over one of my lightweight hydrating primers to ensure that my skin has enough moisture to go through the day. This Wet n Wild primer is my go-to for powder foundations. I applied the concealer next and set it with a translucent powder as powder foundations usually tend to be too heavy for me to set my undereyes with them. I applied the foundation itself with Tati Beauty Blendiful. It's my favorite tool for applying powder foundations because it's easy to use, fast and it's also easy to regulate coverage with it. The coverage upon application was about medium in places where I didn't apply the concealer. It was looking very smooth, not too dry and soft matte.
List of used products
Essence Prime+ Studio Poreless Putty Primer
Wet n Wild primefocus Primer Serum
Rimmel The Multi-tasker Concealer, shade 003 Light
Rimmer Lasting Finish Buildable Coverage Powder Foundation, 002 Pearl
L.YS No Limits Matte Bronzer, Motivate (Light)
Catrice Volume & Lift Brow Mascara, 020
Nars Tinted Smudge Proof Eyeshadow Base, Light
Soph x Revolution Glow, Sugar Frosting
Nyane x Morphe Eyeshadow Palette
Essence Longlasting Eye Pencil, 33 Snow Queen
Essence Double Trouble Mascara
Dermacol Matte Mania Liquid Lip Color, 22
NYX This Is Juice Gloss, Passion Fruit Snatch
Catrice Clean ID Glow, Prime & Fix Spray
Wear time 16 hours
The longevity of this foundation is pretty impressive and 16 hours is a long time to go for pretty much any foundation. It is faded in many places on my face where I either touched my face or somehow wore it off. But overall, I still look fine and since this is a powder foundation it would be really easy to touch up if needed. What I really like is that it did not dry my face out and the soft-matte finish didn't end up looking too powdery at the end. I would say that the foundation almost warmed up to my face and looked even better after couple hours of weartime.
Final thoughts
I've been testing this foundation for about half a year and since I travel with powder foundations a lot due to the liquids limits on airplanes I tried it in different climates as well. Let me start with the quality and price. I would say that for a drugstore powder foundatoin this is as good as it gets and I would definitely recommend it if you can find a good shade match. It doesn't look dry, melts into the skin through the day and works really well with other products while giving you a beautiful soft-matte finish that does not even look like a powder.
When it comes to the weartime, I find that it wears best when it's not too hot because in the summer ot practically melted off my face everytime I wore it. So my recommendation is not wearing it when it's more than 35°C outside because I will probably sweat it right off. But maybe if you have dryer skin than me and don't sweat on the face it wouldn't be a problem. It's a very subjective thing but to me it's the best when the weather's not too extreme.
I also really like the coverage which is medium but can be built without looking too heavy. I like to apply powder foundations with powder puffs of different sorts but it works very well with a brush too.
I would recommend it if you want something very fast, compact, practical and travel friendly without breaking a budget. Powder foundations seriously won over my heart in the past year and I cannot recommend trying them out enough. This one is a great accessible and affordable option to start of with.