Colourpop Pretty Fresh Hyaluronic Hydrating Foundation Review

When I found out Colourpop came out with a foundation addition to its Pretty Fresh collection, I immediate jumped to place my order.

As I was on the Colourpop website to place my order, I had a hard time determining what shade to purchase since I do not trust Colourpop’s photos and swatches. I’ve noticed they are never what they look like in person. I had tried the tinted moisturizer in 9W, and while it leans more neutral on my yellow skin tone, I find that it’s workable since it is a sheer formula. I decided to go with 80W and 100W since 70W looked more neutral and anything past 100W looked too dark for me. I ended up finding a color match chart on Colourpop’s Instagram that showed 80W as a match for 9W in the tinted moisturizer and 100W as a match for 12W, so I was pretty excited that I made the right choice (or so I thought).

Colourpop claims that this foundation is oil free, dermatologist tested, medium coverage, ideal for all skin types, and vegan.

I actually tested this product twice on two different days for reasons I will get into later on. In the photo set above, you can see my skin condition. At the time of testing, I had large pores as well as some dry skin on my nose. I did exfoliate, but there were some dry patches in the nose area due to dehydration. I also had an unfortunate blemish in the cheek area. Please excuse the brows as I’m currently trying to grow them out.

By the way, you can click on any of the photos in this post to enlarge.

The first day, I applied the foundation in 80W using a damp beauty sponge. I found that this foundation was way too patchy and clung to any and all dry spots, making the overall appearance super cakey. The foundation just sat on top of the skin and would come off on the sponge when trying to blend out, leaving a light coverage with patchy results. As for the color match, I have to point out that this foundation made me look red in natural lighting. 80W is not going to work for yellow and olive skin tones.

I found that this foundation doesn’t make me super oily, which is great news. Of course, some oil did peak through when I checked in at the five-hour mark, but I actually think that made the foundation look better since the oil made the dry patches less visible. The dry patches around the nose that were made evident and accentuated by the foundation were pretty much gone.

Hyaluronic acid can be a finicky ingredient to work with; it does wonders for your skin if it’s able to find an external water source such as humidity in the air or ample hydrating skincare products, but if it can’t find an external water source, it will draw that moisture out from your body instead, making your skin dehydrated. For this reason, it is important to use hyaluronic acid properly (I have a more detailed post specifically on hyaluronic acid scheduled for this fall). As this foundation features hyaluronic acid, it is important for your skin to have ample hydration before you use this product. Day one, I completely forgot this was a hyaluronic acid foundation and just did my basic, quick skincare. I absolutely hated the way this foundation made my skin look, but I wanted to give this foundation a fair review, so I literally did five face masks that night and did my full, extensive skincare routine the next morning and tried it with a brush instead of a sponge.

For day two, I initially went with 100W since 80W made my face look red, but it was too dark, so I mixed 80W and 100W using a 1:1 ratio. This ratio was still too dark and peachy for my yellow skin. Properly prepping my skin with intensive skincare and a hydrating primer the second time around definitely helped minimize the cakey, dry spots, but I still found that the foundation did not apply well. I tried multiple brush application methods, but all left streaky or splotchy results. Applying using strokes yielded the best results but still left streaks. I tried mixing a drop of Boscia Tsubaki Beauty per pump of foundation, and that definitely helped make the application smoother, but I still wasn’t all that happy with the foundation. The foundation still sits on the skin. I realized that it feels like that jelly residual layer some sheet masks leave behind.

Overall, my thoughts on this foundation are that it is a definite no for anyone with dry patches, people with light-medium yellow or olive skin tones will most likely not find a match, it’s patchy, and that it’s not the foundation for me. It’s hard to work with as it requires extra care during skin prep and doesn’t really stick to the skin, making it prone to transfer. I was really excited for this product, but I’m sad to say this foundation doesn’t get my stamp of approval.

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