Review| Tarte Amazonian Clay Airbrush Foundation and Airbuki Foundation Brush


All medium tan warm skinned honeys rejoice, because the Tarte Amazonian Clay Airbrush Foundation ($36 retail) has your shade! Spot on!

And the rest of you yellows, especially you light-mediums and super pales.....good luck have fun bye. The shade range is abysmal with this one and they tried narrowing it down to "common" skin tones aka those within the predominant market. I have no match for NC25-NC30, which is alright considering I rarely reach for powder in the winter. At NC35-40 "Medium-Tan Sand" is an exact match to my skin with no peach tones and lots of yellow. 



Curious wood-wannabe and plastic packaging. Read below for how to use and ingredients. 


Wow, much natural. So cruelty free. Such "skinvigorating ingredients"!



The packaging is really bulky and not for anyone wanting to touch up. It comes with a sticker attached to the bottom and you peel to reveal this lovely fishnet device that dispenses product with pressure. The plastic stopper on the cap helps the powder to NOT fly out everywhere *ahem Bare Minerals.* 

And here's the cute part, it's sold in conjunction aka to be used with the Tarte Airbuki Foundation brush. 


So cute!!!! Kawaii desu nee~~~ ^-^ <3 Q_Q <3 ._. Now they should slap a Hello Kitty on that shiz and up the price and it would sell like crazy. 

The brush fits in the palm of my hand easily and is meant to be used with the powder foundation. It's sold separately for 26 bucks. I realized how versatile and mobile it can be, so I picked it up some time later. It buffs out everything like magic, reminding me of a much bigger and user friendly Real Technique Buffing Brush or Expert Face Brush. Nice! 

I found that it works even with thicker full coverage foundations or sheer bases like MAC F&B (although I would advise against that if you need coverage.) It reminds me of the sleeved full sized brush I already have from Tarte, but 10x more portable. 


There you go, spoilers. 

Besides the brush being excellent, the foundation itself is very good. Let's see the claims on Sephora's website: "delivers flawless, natural-looking coverage that lasts, while the skintuitive™ formula invigorates skintone and texture for a youthful complexion. Powered by Amazonian clay enriched with the earth’s natural, light-reflecting gemstones, this talc-free, moisture-rich powder buffs on smoothly for waterproof, 12-hour coverage that won’t settle into fine lines and wrinkles."

Enriched with gemstones...that's all I saw from that. Also: moisture rich, full coverage , and....waterproof?? Wow, okay. 

I have to admit I was first intrigued because of UK Bloggers shilling the shit out of it for Tarte's release in the UK back in March. I held off on purchasing for as long as I could, but I'm a huge sucker for a) foundation b) ease of usage during the summer. 

Here are swatches in comparison to my powder foundations that are in the same shade range NC35-40. Can you tell I don't really like liquid base products during the summer? They tend to cake and pool and a lightweight powder that offers full coverage is always a better bet for me. 



 From left to right: Tarte in Medium-Tan Sand, BareMinerals in Golden Medium, MAC Studio Fix Powder in NC35, MUFE Duo Mat in 207 Golden Beige, and MAC Studio Fix Powder C5. 


It's a gloomy day today, but you can definitely see the different nuances between all five powder products. The Tarte is much peachier compared to MAC NC35 and seems to be even darker than C5 (the olive equivalent of NC42.) However all of these work for when I'm NC35 to 40 especially if I use just one light dusting. 


Here's a final look. I never realized how yellow the BareMinerals product swatches. You can also see the textures of the powders on the hand. These are swatched once with no primer underneath. 


Coverage: Definitely medium build-able to full, in no way full unless you have good skin to begin with. I don't find that this cakes up if you layer another dusting on top of your problem areas. 

Texture: The texture is super finely milled and buttery smooth, reminding me of MAC's MSFN or Benefit Hello Flawless powder. Though it's a powder foundation it doesn't fly everywhere thanks to the smart design of the cap and sifter. Of course, product does come out if you swirl a brush in vigorously but it's not gonna settle into a fine coat on your vanity.

Color Match: Like I said, the color range is not phenomenal but they do understand that people come in several undertones. It just depends on whether you're the right depth to find your ideal shade. I won't dwell on this because I think it's quite insulting. 

Wear: On the skin it's virtually undetectable and while it doesn't make my skin "flawless" per se, it does look naturally flawless. As in, I woke up and my skin looks damn great without any product. It wears down like any other powder foundation without a sticky primer or base which is around 6 hours for me. With a good primer I find that it looks amazing even after a full day, but I won't find much residue on my makeup remover wipe. I obviously don't wear it expecting to swim in a pool, but I'm sure when it comes to that time this foundation will prevail. 

I wish the foundation itself was more purse-friendly but I don't find myself needing to touch up with this product since it doesn't claim to control oil. I use this over a mattifying primer so that's no problem for me. Overall, it looks cute on my vanity and does its job well. I wouldn't rate it a perfect 10, but it's pretty damn close. 

xo Be

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