Le Metier de Beaute Peau Vierge Anti-Aging Complexe Tinted Treatment Fluid

Let's start with the bad part. Peau Vierge, the magical tinted moisturizer from Le Metier de Beaute costs an arm, a leg and $125 (1 oz). Yes. Now, with that out of the way we can continue.

A few months ago in a meeting with the Le Metier de Beaute team it was hard not to notice all of them- office people and beauty specialists, men and women- were sporting a particularly great complexion. I asked what they were doing and wearing and the answer was the same- Peau Vierge. All of them had a story of what this treatment/tint has done for them, and I was impressed.

Peau Vierge sits on the line between makeup and skincare, and I guess that's why the price is so high. It has a high percentage of active ingredients including retinol, and uses a unique technology that claims to improve the efficiency of said active ingredients. I tend to be skeptical of the scientific babble on cosmetics boxes, but I do trust my eyes. My eyes are telling me that this stuff works.

According to Le Metier de Beaute's makeup artists you're not supposed to use a primer underneath Peau Vierge- it's an active skincare treatment, after all. Hearing that made me twitch a little. I've been priming my face religiously for years now and have come to expect my makeup to stay in place no matter what. But PV contains dimethicone, which is the main ingredient in many primers, so I guess they really thought about everything. It also contains SPF 20, which is a nice bonus.

As a foundation alternative Peau Vierge is a serious overachiever. I'm rarely happy with tinted moisturizers, but this one is just as good as my holy grail Chanel Vitalumier. It evens out imperfections and gives a decent light-to-medium coverage. I was highly impressed with the way it looked from the very first use, and was very surprised to see how well it holds even without a primer, as long as I set it with a good finishing powder. Still, when facing hellish weather and high water I reach for a primer first, especially if I need my makeup to hold from morning to night. The finished look is not exactly luminous, because the face looks natural and there's no artificial shimmer or glow. That's why it's so male-friendly. I saw PV on a man and you'd never be able to tell he was wearing anything. Yet, the light diffusing pigments are doing something- everyone's skin looks brighter and very even.

Peau Vierge only comes in two colors- light/medium and medium/dark. I use the light/medium as does everyone I asked from the Le Metier team, despite the very wide range of skin tone and ethnicity. However, a makeup artist experimented a  little with my face and showed me how by blending a little of the darker shade with concealer you can get some serious coverage and a flawless skin. I often buy two sades of face products and blend them together to perfection. However, at $125 a pop I'm sticking to one shade. It's more than good enough.

After using Peau Vierge for several months I can see a difference. Of course, I'm also a skincare zealot and employ other big guns, so it's impossible to attribute everything to just one product. But even as "just" an incredible base for my daily makeup this is one of the best products I've ever used. I received my first bottle from the company but have bought another one since then, so if you ask me "Is it really worth it?", my answer is emphatically "yes". However, I definitely understand how the price would keep many far away, especially if their skin case concerns are different.

Le Metier de Beaute Peau Vierge Anti-Aging Complexe Tinted Treatment Fluid is available from Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus, online and in store.

Photo by Paul Robinson- myvintagevogue.com

Hourglass Illusion Tinted Moisturizer Oil Free SPF 15

Hourglass Illusion Tinted Moisturizer Oil Free SPF 15 sounds promising: "An advanced alternative to liquid foundation that creates a youthful, healthy glow and offers SPF 15 sun protection". But my doubts about it started quickly. First, it's a lot thicker than you'd expect from a tinted moisturizer. Actually, the texture and coverage are pretty much foundation-like, and definitely heavier than my holy grail, Chanel Vitalumier. It's not a bad thing, as some days we all need a little extra help, but why call it a tinted moisturizer if it's really a foundation?

The second issue was color. I had several samples in both Light Beige and Sand. Light Beige was at least two shades too dark for me, though the undertone was good. Diluting it with moisturizer helped a little, but it was still not perfect. Sand was just off on me. On my face it showed with a yellow peach base that clashed with skin tone, and no amount of tweaking and blending could get it right. I guess I could try Ivory, but that's the lightest shade in the Hourglass range, and I promise you, I don't have ivory skin.

I tested about ten samples of this tinted moisturizer, with and without primers. Each sample was enough for about two uses, so I believe I gave it more than enough chances, but just couldn't love this product. Even worse, every time I used it without a primer I ended up with a couple of clogged pores. It's not a scientific experiment, so I can't be sure the Hourglass TM was always the culprit, but it kept happening so I doubt this was a coincidence.

Bottom line: Great coverage, just not for me.

Hourglass Illusion Tinted Moisturizer Oil Free SPF 15 ($55) is available from Sephora and Barneys. I received the samples with my recent Sephora orders and got a few more in store.

Photo: Mademoiselle magazine, September 1966 from Sugarpie Honeybunch on Flickr.

Benefit You Rebel and You Rebel Lite Tinted Moisturizer

I've been all about minimal coverage lately, especially after I worked my way through a couple of You Rebel samples. It's exactly what you'd expect a tinted moisturizer to be: light, kind to your face and give an even finish. The added SPF 15 is definitely a bonus.

Once I was done with the samples and ready to buy a tube, I discovered (the hard way) that You Rebel comes in two colors, regular and light. Surprisingly enough, the one I loved and have used for weeks was the Light. Doesn't make any sense, if you consider my complexion is anything but porcelain. However, you can't argue with the facts: Light melted right into my skin and looked nice and natural, while the regular one made me look related to George Hamilton.

Adding just a drop of the regular You Rebel to a normal dose of Light was perfect in the summer, but now I'm back to just Light. It works well with most primers, and while it doesn't last more than 8 hours, that's quite good for tinted moisturizer.

You Rebel and You Rebel Light ($30) are available from Sephora and BenefitCosmetics.Com

An Uneven Road to Perfection: BECCA Complexion Products

You know all those regurgitated magazine articles about the most common makeup mistakes and no-nos: The obvious foundation on the jawline, the dark lip liner with pink lipstick, the unblended eyeshadow... It's all true, but no longer as common as it once used to be. People do learn, eventually. What's far more common is the half-done makeup: You see a woman who obviously took the time to carefully do her eye makeup, maybe even curled her lashes, chose the right lip color and dabbed on some gloss, but the problem is that she did all that on an uneven surface or skipped a step in the complexion perfection routine. And it shows.

(Another complexion pet peeve is the over-buffing of mineral makeup that results in an unnatural shiny mask. One day when we look back at makeup blunders of this decade, this is going to be at the top of every list, together with excessive smoky eyes that reach the apple of one's cheek, but that's a discussion for another day.)

Once upon a time, before primers appeared on the market, it used to be hard to keep a natural, even face without having to redo the whole thing mid-day. Thankfully, we now have eye primers that do not let eyeshadow crease or fade, and face primers that help us keep up appearances from day to night. They come in two formulas: Clear silicon, like the excellent Smashbox Photo Finish, that glides over the skin and smoothing it, and thin creamy ones that melt into the skin, refining its texture (like the Sephora brand, Shiseido Smoothing Veil and many others).

BECCA Silky Hydrating Primer belongs to the latter group. It's supposed to be a moisturizer as well as a primer, but I wouldn't recommend giving up your usual product. It worked well on top of my regular cream and did a good job at keeping the skin supple and my makeup in place for long hours. The texture is very thin, and since it comes in a regular tube, it dispenses more than needed and is quite wastefull.

The primer worked better with my regular Chanel foundation than with BECCA's own Luminous Skin Color, but that's not really surprising since the LSC is more of a tinted moisturizer than a full-blown foundation. As such, it's lighter in coverage and quite sheer. It feels pleasant on the skin and gives it a nice, healthy finish. I really liked the way it looked: Fresh but without that silly dewey look many light products give. I liked less the way the pump bottle works: It's so squirty, I'm constantly having to wipe the lotion of various surfaces in my bathroom.
Since the coverage is so light, this product requires a touch of concealer on problem areas underneath.

BECCA's compact concealer is a two-in-one deal. You get two intensity levels of coverage: medium and extra. Both are quite thick, which makes blending tricky, especially in the eye area. Also, all the concealer brushes I own are quite useless with this texture. It only works with fingers, which isn't the most hygienic thing ever. The coverage is better than many other concealer I've tried, but the blending issue is a big one in a product that needs to not be seen. The biggest flaw is in the packaging: You need to keep the little plastic insert that tells you which side is which, because you really don't want the pasty extra coverage under your eyes. Believe me: I tried. Quite annoying.

The finishing touch for every well-made face is powder. The one BECCA is offering is loose, very fine milled and gives a truly fabulous, natural look (lovely finish that blends perfectly with the skin and never looks powdered), but only if one manages to work the correct amount, because the packaging, again, doesn't make it easy. What I do, is get some powder on the puff, and then swipe a brush over it. It's a bit of a hassle, even if the results are good.