Product Review: L'Oreal Infallible Foundation

This is probably one of the prettiest foundations I've ever bought. The contoured glass bottle, red pump, and clear cap make it look sleek... almost futuristic. What's scripted on the bottle though made me roll my eyes: L'Oreal Infallible Never Fail Makeup. Thank you, L'Oreal, for helpfully defining what "infallible" means. Those 4 syl-la-ble words sure can be tricky! Give your demographic a little credit, huh?





At any rate, on to the review. According to the L'Oreal website, Infallible promises to fight the "5 signs of make-up meltdown" for 16 hours by: combatting signs of fatigue, hiding blemishes, ending rub-off, stopping shine, and fighting the elements. So, I guess that makes the 5 signs of make-up meltdown: Sleepy, Pimply, Smudgy, Shiny, and ... er... Captain Planet???

I bought this foundation back in December, used it for about 3 days, and hadn't touched it again until I put it on for the purposes of this review. I remember really disliking this one. It's a medium-thick liquid, and feels a bit whipped coming out of the pump dispenser. (The pump dispenser, by the way, is genius -- easy to control, hygenic, and doesn't spew product everywhere.) Blending took more effort than the Wonder Finish, but I've come to realize that this is true of almost every other liquid foundation I've tried. It's not too difficult to blend this stuff onto your face. Nude Beige was the closest shade for me, but it seemed just a bit gray-ish. Not enough warm tones, I guess. Worse, it morphed into a shade that was teeny bit too dark as the day wore on. So minus one for unstable colour!

Infallible gives a smooth velvety medium coverage... for the first hour or two. After that, it all just fell to pieces. Shine starts coming through and the makeup seems to migrate to flaky or drier areas of your face, emphasising them. Coverage became spotty and cakey. Worse, it felt kind of... itchy. It totally felt like I had foundation on my face. Infallible hasn't broken me out incredibly or anything (possibly because I've never used it for very long), but it FELT like it was breaking me out. Yuck!

This is way too thick-looking and -feeling for summertime. Maybe I'd use this again if it was the dead of winter and I needed something with a lot of coverage, but this is certainly NOT a summer foundation.

So, considering that Infallible is marketed as something that stops makeup meltdown, it should get, like, NEGATIVE points for being so bad at preventing shine and migration. I can't imagine how horrible this might be for women with oilier skin than mine. As for longevity, I guess it's better than Wonder Finish, but not by much. As with any other foundation that lets a lot of shine through, the foundation comes off on the tissue when I blot. So watch dem white collars ladies (and the gents with whom you canoodle!). "Freshly made up for 16 hours"? You'd be lucky to make it past 6 hours!

The only good things about this foundation are the packaging and the medium (if temporary and somewhat masky) coverage, if you're into that kind of thing. Which I am currently not. Eeeuck. I really wanna go wash my face now. Tune in again tomorrow to see if Sally Hansen's Airbrush Makeup fares any better than the totally fallible Infallible!



Have you tried Infallible? What did you think of it? Is it possible for a full-coverage foundation to feel nice? What is your favourite medium-or-higher coverage foundation?



This review was part of Foundation Week!