Review: Catrice Perfect Resist Foundation

Unlike yesterdays Catrice post, this one isn't as favourable

One word: Horrendous.

Allow me to expand. My foundation ran out and while I was waiting for the new Chanel Perfection Lumiere foundation to launch I needed something to tide me over. Seeing as the Chanel one was going to cost €44 I didn't particularly want to spend too much on another foundation that I might only use for a couple of weeks.

One of my favourite budget nail polish comes from Catrice and as I'd only ever used their concealer (and liked it)  I decided I may as well give their foundation a try. At €6.99 for the 'Perfect Resist' one, it was worth a shot.

I picked the shade 010 Perfect Nude as it was lightest shade and I am quite pale. It is orange. Not just a bit dark. Proper orange orange. I decided to compare some other foundations that I was about to throw out and some my mum had.

L-R Vichy Aera Teint in 35, Catrice Perfect Resist in 010 Perfect Nude, Bobbi Brown Skin Foundation in Porcelain, Revlon PhotoReady in 003 Shell Coquillage and Bourjois 10 Hour Sleep Effect in 72.  

It's hard to see in the photos but the Catrice one is a lot oranger than any of the darker ones in real life

The orange is a bit more obvious here. (2nd from top).

Next is the scent. It is a very heavily perfumed product. It's not that I don't like the smell - it is a kind of comforting scent, kind of like your granny but it also reminded me a lot of the heavy stage make-up I used to wear when I was younger in drama plays and stuff. I think it's more that the product scent lingers and nearly overpowers.

The coverage was great, the formula fine albeit I felt the consistency was just a bit too sticky for my liking. Wear time was very long-lasting.

So what's wrong with it apart from the colour you ask? Well after 4-5 days of usage, it pretty much savaged my skin. Yes, my skin is dry and sometimes can feel a bit 'tight' after using some products but never have I experienced the reaction this created.

It basically burned the skin on my cheeks over the few days until I had two raw sore patches up high on my cheekbones. My left cheek and eye swelled up. When I removed my eye make-up and all my face make-up you could quite clearly see the faint burn mark rings going above my eyebrows and down around my cheeks.

It took about a week for the patches to heal and smooth over. This involved using a thick soothing moisturiser, sudocream, copious amounts of olive oil and bio-oil. I used to dread taking off my make-up in the evening as my cleanser made it sting and even water made it sting. I always ended up gritting my teeth while removing it! (And I had to go to work every day so there was no way I could go make-up free to let my skin breathe and heal during the day).

I suppose I should have been quicker off the mark and stopped using it sooner but to be honest my skin has being going ape on me the last while with breakouts etc. that I just thought it was an extension of that. However, once I figured out it was the new foundation I stopped using it, obviously.

This isn't going to happen everybody I assume, I'm sure for some people it is their holy grail foundation. I really don't know why my skin took such a reaction to it (And I'm assuming it was the foundation because nothing else changed and it started to heal when I stopped using it) as my skin has never taken a reaction that bad to a product before but I suppose there's a first for everything. I just know I'll be weary of using any of their foundations again! On a positive note, the foundation that I picked up to replace it (I still wasn't able to get the Chanel one) is Aera Teint by Vichy and I found it really soothing and nice to use on my sore skin. I will probably do a full review on it.

Anybody else experience anything like this with a Catrice foundation?