From certain angles, my skin is looking prime right now. For that I have to thank the golden trifecta of Vitamin C serum, retinol, and moisturizer—the three keep my combination, dry-leaning skin even and hydrated. There’s just one thing they can’t take on, and it’s the cystic acne scattered up and down my jawline. Some of the spots are peaked into whiteheads, but most are lurking painfully under my skin. It’s certainly not ideal, though there is a silver lining: And that’s that my current skin situation led me to finally get into color-correcting.

Color correctors saw a ground swell a few years ago when you couldn’t walk into stores without seeing green-, orange-, purple-, and red-colored face products by the dozen. Where concealer alone isn’t always powerful enough to neutralize dark undereye circles or redness, color-correcting products lean on color theory to balance out tones. Green lives opposite from red on the color wheel, so the former cancels out the latter. Purple neutralizes sallow, yellow tones, while orange and red balance out blue and purple dark circles.

It’s pretty easy to learn, but I’m not one to add any extra steps to my morning routine, so I’ve mostly ignored the category up until this point. But that was before I became addicted to the cult of Erborian’s latest release, the CC Red Correct. The French-Korean beauty brand is famous for its top-selling BB and CC creams, mostly because they blend into your skin so seamlessly, it’s like you’re not wearing makeup. Its new CC Red Correct takes that shade-matching technology and combines it with a subtle green tint and centella asiatica (a skin-healing ingredient) to help both conceal and correct.

Fresh out of the tube, the CC Red Correct looks like a minty-green, medium-thick moisturizer—more of a lightweight cream than a fluid liquid. I’ve seen some people use it like a primer, but since it blends into my skin so well, I like it as a one-and-done base product. In terms of pigment, I’d compare it to a medium-coverage foundation (I use about a nickel-sized amount, dotted across my jawline). It is pretty moisturizing, so if you have oily skin, I’d recommend topping the CC cream with foundation or powder. With the extra boost, its concealing power stays put through the day.

I’m also usually pretty wary of products that use encapsulated pigments (little beads of pigment in the formula that help the color self-adjust to your skin tone) because none have ever been just right in the past. Erborian’s, however, is the first to ever leave me impressed. I hate being able to see foundation sit on my skin, and it sidesteps that look by a mile. After a few seconds of blending, the base color matches my fair skin dead-on, while the green tint cancels out my redness completely. I can still slightly see the bumps on my jawline, but they’re less eye-catching without their bright, angry color. I call it a win.

Erborian CC Red Correct, $44, erborian.com

Related Stories:
–14 Glamour Editors on the Skin Care Tips That Changed Their Complexions
–Laneige’s New Moisturizer Looks Like Whipped Cream for Your Face
–5 Women Try the Summer Fridays Overtime Face Mask

Source link