Product Review: Zhen Oil Free Matte Foundation

This review was brought to you by Meg's Makeup. To see what others thought of this product, check out the reviews here!

Happy Mother's Day, everyone!!!

My mom is a nice lady. She's always great with her P's and Q's, she smells nice, and children and animals like her. She let me play with her makeup and scarves when I was little. My mom's great.

Which still doesn't make it easier that she's always right. Like, how she was always telling me that I should eat more vegetables and drink more water? Score one for Mom. Or how she'd always tell me to plan out my homework so that I wouldn't have to stay up for days trying to get it done in time. Yeah, Mom's right again.

It should come as no surprise then, that Mom was also right about Chinese school. I hated Chinese school. HATED it. It was hard, and ruined half of my weekend, and I had to go to it for like 8 years. Mom would always say that it'd be useful in my future careers to know Chinese, to which I replied in my attitude-y adolescent sneer: "Duh Mom. I'm going to work in CANADA. I'll learn French instead!*"

And, because my Mom is so great, she refrains from telling me "I told you so", even though I use Chinese words in my experiments now, and things would be immensely easier if I'd paid more attention in Chinese school. (That's +3 for Mom now, if you're keeping count)

Fortunately, I did pay enough attention to know the meaning of this Chinese word scripted on the bottle of foundation that Meg sent:




"Zhen". It means "true", making Zhen Oil Free Matte Foundation very aptly named indeed. The finish and colour of this long-lasting foundation stays true even after a long work day. In fact, it basically beats up the long workday, and mops the floor with it, all the while leaving you with a perfectly velvety finish.

For such a long lasting foundation, Zhen is surprisingly light. The thin liquid goes on cool (it's water-based!) and spreads easily on the skin, but you'll have to blend fast, since it sets rather quickly. The Almond shade that I received was just about a perfect match for my light-med warm skintone, and it blended right in with just a few strokes. Coverage is on the light side of medium, although you could easily sheer it out with a damp sponge or foundation brush. It looks fantastically natural, but it can look a bit masky if you put on too much -- a little really goes a long way!

Although it has amazing tenacity at stopping oil from coming through, it doesn't look chalky or overly flat -- just a lovely matte finish. This is meant for oilier skin types, although my currently dry-ish skin has no problems with it. It does not emphasise flakes, nor does it feel dry and uncomfortable.

Zhen foundation comes in 5 shades that are especially designed for Asian women, or anyone with yellow/golden undertones. A high quality foundation with SPF 15, all for less than $18 USD? You can order this foundation and other Zhen products from the company's website (they ship to Canada, whoo hoo!) or try Amazon.com, which does not ship to Canada, but has a nifty 30% off promotion going on.


So the moral of today's post: Moms are wonderful, wise creatures that we should listen to more, and Zhen foundation truly rocks!


* Which I kind of did. Poorly. Oops, I mean mauvaisement. See?