Laneige BB Cushion Foundation Review

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For whatever reason I’ve been really into trying out different foundations lately. I dunno what it is. A couple of mine have been running low, so I think maybe that prompted a flurry of ‘omg what do I buy next????’ Whatever. I decided to get in on the cushion foundation game and picked the Laneige BB Cushion in Light as my intro to the genre. Then I put off reviewing it for a really long time because it just took that long to decide how I felt about it.

Packaging

The hype about cushion foundations is allllll about the packaging. It’s still a liquid foundation, but instead of being in a bottle, it’s in a sponge. And then you use another sponge to put it on your face. Supposedly this ‘distributes just the right amount’ somehow. I’m skeptical. The compact does make it convenient for air travel since it’s easy to sneak by as a non-liquid, but in practice it’s kind of clunky to use. The sponge is a little bigger than the surface of the cushion and the round shape makes it hard to press it in evenly. Since I was only picking up a tiny bit of product at a time, I found myself going back to get more, again and again.

Let’s talk about that sponge, too. This one is white on the top and a dark blue on the bottom. I managed to get foundation on the top of the sponge the very first time I used it. Even though I bet the dark-colored application surface is meant to hide foundation stains, it does not. It just looks sort of gross and moldy (I promise it isn’t). I do have my concerns about how sanitary the cushion and sponge can possibly be though.

Otherwise, the compact itself is fairly nice. The closure is fine and I haven’t had any issues with the sponge drying out. When you’re ready to start in on the included refill, all you have to do is pop the old one out by pushing it up from the bottom.

Color

The color options for this foundation are really limited, with a grand total of six shades. I guesstimated that Medium would be my color, and boy was I wrong. It was only a tiny bit too dark to start with but it oxidized bright orange. It went right back to Target. I swapped it out for Light, which works, but just barely. It goes on quite a bit lighter than my skin, but oxidizes quickly. It’s still a little too yellow though and I think it makes me look slightly dead. As it turns out there’s one more shade in between (Light-Medium) that wasn’t stocked in store when I bought mine, but I’m probably not going to bother chasing it down. If there were testers available, maybe, but the endless process of buy->try->return is the main reason I rarely buy drugstore makeup and in this case I really just don’t feel like fooling around with it again.

Formula

Like just about every other BB cream under the sun, the Laneige BB cushion claims to have all sorts of virtues. Preventing shine, protecting from sun, fading dark spots, hydrating…. like it’s some sort of miracle product in a sponge. It does have arbutin, which may fade dark spots, but there’s no way to tell if it’s in a high enough concentration to actually work. I didn’t notice any difference. I also don’t necessarily trust the sunscreen claims, just because I don’t think I use enough of it to get the rated SPF. I’ll just keep using my regular sunscreen, thank you.

Aside from the supposed skincare benefits, I had not-so-perfect results with it as a foundation. It seems to sit on top of my skin instead of blending in, and it gathers in lines and pores (especially noticeable near my nose and between my eyebrows). It most certainly does not prevent shine – just the opposite, actually. It goes from dewy to oily before lunch, and then it starts to break down in any areas that happen to be more dry. The overall coverage clocks in at a light-to-medium, but definitely on the lighter side unless you want to do lots of building up.

In Short: I wanted to be in love with my first cushion foundation, but this one was pretty much a disaster.

The Laneige BB Cushion ($32) is available at target.com