Hiya everyone, I hope your week is going OK. Sometimes, beauty brands like to show us upcoming products releases, other times you log onto Selfridge’s in the morning like you always do, and there’s a new foundation that’s surprisingly dropped! This is what happened with the Guerlain L’Essentiel High Perfection!
I check Selfridge’s new in beauty every single day and I saw the bottle and thought they had got their new releases confused. However, on closer inspection, it was indeed a new formula! I love the original L’Essentiel Natural Glow, so I knew I had to try the L’Essentiel High Perfection as well!
This is a more matte version of the Natural Glow version. It’s not full on matte, I’d say it’s a soft matte. Plus there’s a little extra coverage, but you can still sheer it to a medium coverage.
I did an all day wear test as I usually do, plus I’ll go through a breakdown of the price and what I think of the product and packaging, so let’s get to it!
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COST
The Guerlain L’Essentiel High Perfection Foundation is £44 for 30 ml. This breaks down as £1.46 per ml.
This is a pretty pricey foundation, however, you don’t need much product to cover your face, so it will last a while. In comparison to other brands in this price bracket, it’s about on par. Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk is £43 for 30ml. Dior is a little less at £37 for 30ml with their Forever Skin Glow.
You can purchase it at Selfridge’s and Guerlain.
PACKAGING
This foundation comes in a frosted glass bottle with a metal cap. The pump feels really nice and smooth. No spurting etc. The bottle feels heavy and luxurious. I have to say I do love this packaging. It looks and feels gorgeous and looks great on your vanity!
It’s the same style of packaging as the L’Essentiel Natural Glow Foundation, however that bottle is not frosted and the High Perfection is.
SHADE RANGE
This foundation comes in 30 shades, which is pretty good. I wish their lightest neutral shade pulled a little less orange. However, I can totally get away with wearing this as I don’t ever try and build my foundations to full coverage.
There’s a pretty even balance of light, medium, dark shades. There are 9 deeper shades and the darkest shade is pretty dark. Plus, they still do cool/neutral/warm for their deepest shades which is great as I see with quite a few brands all their dark shades are warm. Not everyone with deep skin has a warm complexion!
Equally, not all pale people have a cool complexion. I am a true neutral, but I usually find neutral shades either too cool or too warm. It’s rare I find an almost perfect match. It’s no different with the L’Essentiel High Perfection. 00N is a pretty decent match, but does pull a bit warm.
In comparison to the Natural Glow version of this foundation, the shade range is miles better. The Natural Glow has about 3 deep shades which just isn’t on. I’m glad to see Guerlain improving their shade range and being more inclusive.
This is the shade 00N. It looks paler in the bottle than when you pump it out, so I suspect this is oxidisation:
CLAIMS
- 24 hour wear
- Natural matte finish
- High coverage
- Natural and flawless wear all day
- Blurs pores and imperfections
- Formula lets skin breathe
- Hydrating
- Protects against UVA and UVB filters
It always gets me when brands go on about 24 hour wear, because, yes people do work long hours, but I don’t know anyone who has worn a foundation for 24 hours straight. However, on my skin, I don’t see this lasting 24 hours. I have combo skin and this laster about 14 hours on me. Around hour 11/12 it started to become more noticeable. By hour 14 there was definitely some separation.
I agree that this has a natural matte finish. It manages to be quite hydrating and is not a flat, lifeless matte. I was slightly worried this might not be very flattering on me as my skin has been quite dry and flaky recently. However, I shouldn’t have worried because this manages to glide over the skin, not clinging to dry patches and still give you that soft matte finish.
With one pump I got a solid medium coverage. More coverage than I naturally go for, so yes, I do believe you could easily get this to full coverage.
The next claim, natural and flawless kind of ties in with the above where I talk about the finish. It is incredibly natural and the fact it doesn’t cling to my dry patches means it’s pretty darn flawless.
I wouldn’t say it blurs everything, but it certainly doesn’t just sit in pores. It is easy to blend and not have pores noticeable. They are obviously still there, but they’re not drawing attention to themselves. I can still see them, no matter how nicely the foundation sits on my skin, so I don’t think it does any blurring. It does cover imperfections well. My redness and scarring was covered and it didn’t draw attention to anything.
With allowing the skin to breathe… It doesn’t feel like you have a heavy layer of foundation on, so yes I think it does allow your skin to breathe. It’s still a higher coverage foundation, but my skin doesn’t feel clogged or like I’m wearing something heavy.
The Guerlain L’Essentiel High Perfection Foundation manages to be both matte and hydrating. For my whole wear test, it continued to look great on the skin and didn’t accentuate dry patches, fine lines etc. I would say that after 11/12 hours it was noticeable on my skin, so at that point I wouldn’t class it as natural as it did separate from my skin.
This last claim… Yes this foundation has SPF15, but with the amount you need to get coverage versus the amount you would need to actually get that protection? I don’t think this claim is correct. I would never advise using only foundation as your SPF as you would need to put so much on it would be cake central. Always use a separate SPF underneath your makeup!
APPLICATION AND WEAR TEST
I found this very easy to apply with a brush. It’s not super runny, but not super thick either and I find it easy to work with. I always use a buffing brush to apply foundation and then press in with a damp sponge. I’ve never liked just applying my foundation with a sponge as I don’t find it easy to spread the product.
Likewise, with just a brush, sometimes a foundation won’t sink in to my skin properly. However, it never fails me to first use a brush and then press it in gently. This was a tip I found out a few years back for people with large pores who want their foundation to not just sit like a puddle in pores!!
I applied this over my new Holy Grail primer, which is the Estee Lauder Futurist Aqua Brilliance Watery Glow Primer.
This product isn’t fast drying, so you have plenty of time to apply it. With some matte foundations you have to work in sections as they dry so fast. But, with this one, you can do your whole face with no issue.
This really does look beautiful on the skin. You can’t tell you’re wearing anything when you first apply. All of the products I applied on top worked beautifully. I used a cream blush and had no issue with it lifting the foundation. I don’t set my foundation for wear tests as I like to see how the actual foundation wears on my skin.
This is straight after application:
As you can see, it still looks like skin. If you are a lover of super radiant foundations, then you probably won’t like this. But because it’s not super matte, you might still like it if you like a natural glowy look. However, of course, Guerlain do have a Natural Glow version of this foundation, so that might be more up your street! That one can get pretty glowy though!
I don’t lean particularly glowy or matte with my foundation preferences. I think I sit somewhere in the middle where I like to look natural. Either natural soft matte or natural slightly glowy. I don’t like really glowy products as I can get quite oily and it’s not flattering. Equally I don’t like super matte foundations as I find they are not flattering on my skin either.
Getting back to the wear test. This foundation lasts a good 14 hours on me. After 11/12 hours I start to notice it separating from my skin on my cheeks and above my eyebrows. My nose and chin still looked great. I didn’t lose any coverage, it just became a bit more noticeable. This does get more glowy through the day on my combo skin. I could easily have powdered and got another couple of hours out of this foundation.
Here is the foundation after 11 hours:
OVERALL THOUGHTS
I’m impressed with this foundation! I always get excited by new foundations as they’re one of my favourite things to test. At this point I have over 50!! However, I wasn’t sure I would love the L’Essentiel High Perfection foundation as much as I do!
Reading through the claims and it saying soft matte, I had hopes that I would like it, but it really does look gorgeous and it’s not too matte. It doesn’t accentuate any texture on my skin, it looks good over my acne. I was surprised that it didn’t cling to any dry patches either! For a matte foundation, that’s impressive!
It covers redness, it evens everything out while looking like skin. I’m intrigued to see how it wears with a mask and if it transfers. Next week I’ll FINALLY be sharing my 24 (possibly 25 now haha!) best and worst foundations for mask transfer! It’s taken months to test all the foundations, but I’m finally ready to share!
There we have it, another foundation review! I would recommend this foundation to anyone who likes a natural matte which doesn’t look flat. I think it would work for all skin types as I have both oily and dry patches on my face and it looked great on all areas!
For my other foundation reviews, click here.
