Student Style: Budget Foundation From Barbara Daly & Rimmel

It pains me to say it, but na n-oíche dorcha of autumn are upon us. Sure, wasn’t it dark when I was watching the nine o’clock news last night? I don’t want to get too scientific here, but the less sunlight there is, the colder it is, and the harsher the elements are upon the sensitive skin of one’s visage. For a lot of us, this means a departure from the lighter tinted moisturisers and a voyage into the realms of Sthronger Shtuff. True to form, I tried out a few budget foundations to save you all a few extra pennies – after all, I had to make it up to you all for mentioning THE END OF SUMMER.

First for testing was Moisture Foundation, €8.35 by the much-loved Barbara Daly for Tesco. I chose porcelain, the palest of five shades on offer, because, advertisement for Vanish that I am, my skin is whiter than white. Surprisingly, this was bang-on a perfect match for my skin tone. It also had an SPF of 20, a fact I only discovered after noting the distinct sun-cream whiff (which I actually love).

A bit disappointing however was the ‘moisture’ aspect; this settled into every crack and crevice in my skin, so I can only imagine what the corresponding Oil-Free Foundation is like.

Match Perfection Foundation, €11.70, by Rimmel, was the second of my trialled products. This, I have to say, was the strangest foundation I’ve used in a long time. Subtle it is not: even in Ivory, the palest of six tones, it yelled ‘HELLO I AM WEARING FOUNDATION’, in a very news-reader kind of way.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I have never yearned for blue sapphire pigments in my face base; however, Rimmel clearly saw a gap in the market and stampeded to the rescue. Even weirder was the weird, alchemical process that occurred when I went out into the sun five minutes after applying this – it turned pink. To be honest, even the SPF 15 couldn’t win me over with a definite, bright rosey pink stamped across my face.

Back to the drawing board, it appears!