Product Review: TheBalm Time Balm Concealer

Hello friends! Hope everyone had a nice weekend. I had a fantastic one myself -- it was me and The Boy's 1 year anniversary, and it's been sort of a week-long celebration. From cooking classes to winery tours to waterparks, it's been a crazy fun weekend, albeit a very tiring one.

Fortunately, I was toting around my Time Balm Concealer throughout the festivities, and thus managed to appear bright-eyed and alert* in any incriminating photos.




Concealers really have a thankless job -- we ask them to cover up all things unsightly, and demand that they get no credit for the work by being as invisible on the skin as possible. Well, Time Balm goes one step further and promises to deliver wrinkle-fighting and anti-dark circles technology. You're supposed to even wear it in your sleep!

Well, I don't know about all that jazz -- sounds like a clever ploy to sell twice the amount of concealer to me. ("But look!", they say. "Your circles are diminished when you wake up!" This is true. This is because I still have freakin' make up on. Yeesh.)

But none of that matters much, as Time Balm is really a very good concealer. The coverage is quite opaque, about on par with my beloved Cinema Secrets concealer. However, where the Cinema Secrets glides on smoothly, you need to work at the Time Balm a bit. It can feel a bit dry and unblendable going on, but there's a few things you can do to deal with that:

1) Moisturize like mad
2) Leave the container in the bathroom while you shower (the heat makes it smoother)
3) Work at it a bit in the container before putting it on.

I find it best to use my ring finger to apply, as the heat from my skin helps the concealer go on.

Where it does have an advantage over other high-coverage concealers is its tenacity -- this is probably the longest-lasting creme concealer I've tried. After you put it on, it dries to an ever-so-slightly tacky finish, which in terms of home decor, hair style, or date choices is a very bad thing. However, in concealer-speak, it means that it's less likely to budge or smear your mascara. I can go running with this on, and if I don't go crazy swiping at my face with the towel, it'll still have coverage at the end. It even sorta-kinda survived an entire afternoon at the waterpark -- a touch-up was definitely needed, but it wasn't entirely gone either.

So, if you have a problem with disappearing concealers, give this one a try. However, if you have very dry skin, this might not work that well for you, although the tips I mentioned above do improve its workability a lot. It comes in 4 shades, with Light/Medium being my perfect match. Definitely worth a try for the $26 CAD at Sephora, and you can even get it on sale at Bombshell Bargains for $17 (plus shipping).


* Well, bright-eyed and slightly drunk in some of them, if we are being honest. It was a celebration, after all.