I just tested all of the Fenty Beauty foundations—and there’s truly something for everyone

The Fenty Beauty foundations are pretty high-tech, and they all adapt to the climate, so if your skin temperature heats up, your base won’t look like it’s melting off—hooray. While heat wasn’t an issue when I tested, I did find that this foundation did stay put all day long. It offers a luminous-matte finish, so rather than being flat and one dimensional my skin still had some ‘life’ to it, which I liked. However, while it’s meant to be a buildable medium-to-full coverage base, I found it didn’t cover my hyperpigmentation, or smooth over my pores as well as I’d like, and it looked too cakey if I applied multiple layers to my skin. 

In my teens I wanted my base to completely camouflage my skin, but now I’m a big fan of a light-to-medium coverage foundation for casual outings, Zoom meetings and alike. I expected my pores, acne scars, spots, redness, and hyperpigmentation to be somewhat visible, so was stunned that my pores were well blurred, and that my redness instantly disappeared with just one layer. Even my hyperpigmentation was less visible, and yet my skin had a natural glow to it. But hours later, despite using a setting powder on my oily T-zone, my skin was far too shiny for my liking.

There’s no other way to describe this finely milled powder than that light as air. Even after applying multiple layers of the stuff with a dense brush for extra coverage, I still couldn’t feel it on my skin, and I didn’t look cakey either—not even on my dry patches. It’s mattifying, but like all the Fenty Beauty foundations, it doesn’t look flat. While it didn’t offer total full coverage, it kept oil at bay for hours. It’s also easy to carry around and comes with an applicator, so it wasn’t a pain to reapply about four hours in.

A little goes a long way when it comes to this medium-to-full coverage foundation, so start with a small amount and build up depending on the coverage desired. Fenty Beauty states that this hydration-packed base is best for normal-to-dry skin, but my combination (at the time of testing I had oily, dry and normal patches) skin loved it. It glides over pores, offers impressive coverage, left my skin luminous in all the right places, and lasted about four hours before I had to dust some powder over my T-zone.