Mrs Marbles' Beauty: The Hunt for Holy Grail Foundation

Note to self: Don't do this with round bottles, they will fall off and break, and then you'll have to publish one of your crappy shots, like this one.

When I moved to the UK, I came with a bottle of L'oreal True Match for wearing with tanned skin (that's Chicago summer tanned skin) and Physician's Formula mineral powder for every-day wear. I try to avoid wearing makeup every day, so in the last three years I may have worn these a handful of times.

Last April, when performing for my university's Centre for Performing Arts, I think I realised what had happened to my skin over that time . Three years in sunny Bristol had left me significantly paler than someone of my Italian-Cuban heritage ought to be, and three years in university (at the ripe age of thirty-*cough*) left me with a face full of nasty, inflamed spots.

I wore the L'oreal as the perfect extra dark colour to prevent looking washed out under the stage lights.

source: Wikimedia Commons

After the debacle that was uni finished, I promised myself I would clear up my skin. Otherwise, I would not leave the house without wearing some sort of makeup. And so began my foray into the wonderful world of beauty and skincare.

Eyes, lips and cheeks are fun and easy, but foundation? Oh boy. I'm sure most of us have our stories about how we were forced to wander out of doors with cakey, oxidised, melting and off-toned foundation while searching for our Holy Grail. But, since I'm now a beauty blogger, it's becomes my resonsibility to come to the rescue, boldly publicising my skin shame so that some little someone out there might have one less day of abject embarrasment! Also, who doesn't love a little self-deprecation?

No matter how good at this you are, publishing a photo of it on the internet eventually becomes a form of self-deprecation. And this chick is talented. Source: Wikimedia Commons

So to start off, you should know about my skin, so you can put my advice in it's rightful place, be that the bin or top of your list. I would describe my skin as combination. Both sides of my nose can be so oily they'll melt foundation off within an hour or two, and the outer bits can be so dry I get rough, ashey patches. Awesome, right? At the moment I write this, I'm actually considering doubling up on skin care: one set for oily skin and another for dry. It's that difficult. And I'm still a little spotty. And by 'a little' I mean half a dozen active spots on a constant basis and dozens of acne scars that wont go away. And I have visible capilliaries.

Ugh, I want to go sit down with a pint of ice cream after writing that. Deep breaths, Jess. It'll be okay.

Right. So the point of this is the inception of my series of foundation reviews called 'The Hunt for Holy Grail Foundation'. In this series I'll review foundations as I try them, sharing the details of not just a day of wear, but what they're like over approximately a week. I hope you'll find it helpful and fun!