[unpaid/sample] In the UK, we tend to think of Mavala as just a nail range but in fact, the brand has both make up and skin care as well. I’ve got their new Serum Foundation to try and so far it is living up to the claims of skin care and make-up in one. What’s impressive is its Yuka rating of 90/100. I’m seeing more and more chatter about Yuka, which is an app that scans the barcodes of food and beauty products to give them a ‘health’ rating. Just wondering where I’d find the time to scan everything I pop in my supermarket basket – it would make a ‘quick trip to Tesco’ into something of a mission.

If I’m going to make a comparison to any other foundations, I’d say that L’Oreal Paris True Match is similar in texture although the ingredients are different, of course. It’s a soft and smooth base that feels light as air on the skin. However, it’s very difficult to blend it without the pigment sitting in my pores.

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I don’t really come across this issue very often but it was quite apparent here although better when I swapped from blending with a brush and moved to blending with my fingers. I’m always looking up close when I’m applying foundation and will take a quick look in the magnifying mirror of doom to see how a product is lying on my complexion but I didn’t even need to do that to see that the application isn’t quite right on me.

The problem may because I’m wearing moisturizer already and the mix of the serum (a double load, if the press release is to be believed) and moisturizer is just too much, but I think it’s unlikely that anyone would apply directly to skin clean of any other product (partly because we are so trained to layer up!). That said, it may be that vitamin c fueled Mavala Serum Foundation is enough on its own to act as both hydrator and colour. The finish is semi-matte and I’m not a fan of matte at all – so another reason could be that the powders needed for a matte finish are just not working well with the serum. I took off my moisturizer and tried again using about half the amount of product, because overload can sit in pores – same effect, although slightly less.

So, beautiful texture, traceless on the skin but just not working out for me this time.

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