I've been a major Dolce & Gabbana fan for the longest time. In my teenage years, I sported items from the now discontinued D&G clothing range and loved the cleanness yet musky scent of their Feminine perfume (also discontinued I think). Nowadays, I've moved onto more mature things such as suits and of course, their iconic body hugging dresses. I was really glad that they came out with a makeup line but at the same time, I was very suspicious of the quality. I held back for a while and waited for reputable reviews since there were no counters near where I lived at the time of the launch. I finally purchased the powder foundation compact while I was searching for a MAC Studio Fix Powder alternative.
I really wanted to like this compact. The packaging looks beautiful and is super travel/on-the-go friendly but everything else about it made me almost hate it. I just realized now that I somehow lost the swatch photos I took but I feel that I need to rant about this.
The compact came with a black velvety pouch and a dense sponge that did have a certain scent to it but it didn't really bother me since the quality was great. The powder is meant to be used dry for a sheer finish and damp for a fuller coverage. I tried it both ways for weeks and it just wasn't right for me.
The first difficulty I had was getting the color selection right. It took some research to figure out approximately what shade I was since they are hard to come across in person. The numbering was also not too intuitive in terms of base color. My first order was in the shade 70 Natural. The undertones were perfect (on the yellow side) but it was a bit too light. Please note I was around a MAC NC20 at the time and this really looked pale after application, probably around a NC15. Since I wanted something that I could build coverage with, this was too off. Later I ordered it in 75 Bisque. The intensity of the shade was perfect but the undertone of the powder started to look too pink for me. I didn't continue to search for the right shade because the following things occurred.
No matter how I applied it, it looked rather dry and cakey on my skin. Even the lightest layer with a fluffy brush. Applying it wet can build up coverage (almost full) but it still looked cakey and unnatural afterwards. The powder is very finely milled but it's something about the formulation that isn't very suitable for my skin. The longevity was ok, nothing amazing (around 5-6 hours in the general cheek area) and I had to touch up my T-zone mid day due to some oils breaking through. After a few weeks of testing, really deep pimples started to build up and the pores near my nose also got lots of white heads. I wasn't using anything new at that time so it had to be this compact. Either something in the ingredients eventually irritated my skin or that the formulation was too heavy that my pores couldn't breath due to daily use.
I personally believe a natural, authentic skin looking base makeup goes a long way and this wasn't for me. The reason that I wanted a MAC alternative was to have something even more natural looking without sacrificing longevity and too much coverage but clearly this was on the other end of the spectrum. I know that a lot of people love this but it just didn't work on my skin. Perhaps I will test out some of the colored items in the range and avoid the base makeup for now.
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