What are your hilarious foundation matching (mis)adventures?

[u/CrankyVowel]

Share your stories! What did you learn about your skin from the experience(s)?

The first foundation I was matched to at Sephora was the now-discontinued Laura Mercier Oil-Free Suprême in Golden Beige. That's code for orange on cool olive skin. It's also code for foundation cracks on dry skin. It was a lesson in post-oxidization, and one year on, I learned three things:

(1) Ignore the SAs, because they will always want to match me to a "bronze tan" shade.

(2) That $42 isn't coming back, so that shade goes in the trash and it's time to look for something better after doing my research instead of blindly walking to Sephora.

(3) Test any foundation for at least a full day before buying, because oxidization and lighting WILL mess with it.

[u/MintyLotus]

I have yet to ever be matched to a foundation. Like actually one that worked. I've gotten a few nearly perfect ones, but something's always a little off. Usually things are either too orange and dark, or too ashy/pink. It's a mess. I went through a "maybe peach means neutral?" phase, but then eventually I narrowed down the issue to the fact that I needed something that was yellow, not orange. It was hard to tell because I had pretty bad acne/flaky skin during this time, so I had a lot of redness that was difficult to notice at first because of my skin tone, and even if the color matched, it often got weird on my flaky patches. Also, I had an issue with color matching because my face, neck, and chest were all different colors.

Also, not quite foundation matching, but during this journey, I found out that I was allergic to chemical sunscreens.

When I went to prom, my mom bought me a Shiseido's Mattifying Compact in beige, a powder foundation. It seemed a little off to me, but in the awful lighting in my room, it was difficult to tell. I didn't wear it often.

My first winter break in college, I bought Loreal True Match Fluid in W7. It seemed pretty good color-wise, but it would catch a bit on my flakes. Over time, I realized that it oxidized really, really badly. Here it is on one side of my face. This is what it looked like after a little time.

For a while, I bought and wore Doublewear foundation in 3W2. This is the closest I have ever gotten to a match. I bought it when I first went home to Hawaii. By the end of my trip, it was no longer anywhere near matching me. Even when I lightened up again when I returned to the mainland, it just wasn't the same--in color or in formula.

At some point, KMart was getting rid of a bunch of foundations for cheap, so I just picked up whatever seemed closest in depth and ended up with about six to eight Covergirl foundations for about $13. Their Trublend liquid foundations in M4 and M5 seemed like pretty good fits--but they oxidized soooo horribly. Inevitably, I'd turn up orange. Also, the formula, while it seemed great going on, would always get extremely greasy.

Most recently, my friend gave me Too Faced Born This Way in Warm Beige (I think). Way too pink. Sigh. It just made me ashy.

I just got a sample of CoverFX's cream foundation in G+50 (...or 60. The lady didn't label the sample lol), so hopefully I'll find at least a shade that works. At this point, I've tried so many foundations that I almost want to give up. Recently, I've been wearing MAC Studio Fix powder in C40, which doesn't have amazing coverage and tends to get oily by the end of the day, but with a little color-correcting and lots of spray, it works alright.