Hello lovelies! I'm reviewing the Milani Conceal + Perfect Foundation today. This foundation had been getting so much rave last year and I've been desperate to get my hands on it, plus I had major hopes for the shade 06 Sand Beige. I was sort of under the impression and slightly hoping that this would be the drugstore dupe of my favourite foundation formula the Charlotte Tilbury Magic Foundation (review here), solely based on how smooth the application and finish looked in demos on youtube. I've had some interesting yet slightly disappointing finds with the Milani Conceal + Perfect and have a bit of a love / hate relationship with it, if you'd like to know more just keep on reading...

What the website says:

Combat under eye circles, redness and other skin imperfections with this full coverage, water-resistant foundation plus concealer in one. A no mess, no drip pump dispenses just the right amount of fluid needed to achieve a flawless look and works around the clock to keep skin looking naturally perfect!

Shades Available:

·        01 Creamy Vanilla - For fair skin tones with cool undertones.

·        02 Natural - For light skin with golden undertones.

·        03 Light Beige - For light skin with neutral undertones.

·        04 Medium Beige - For light to medium skin tones with neutral undertones.

·        05 Warm Beige - For medium skin tones with rosy undertones.

·        06 Sand Beige - For medium skin tones with warm undertones.

·        07 Sand - For medium skin tones with neutral undertones.

·        08 Light Tan - For medium skin tones with cool undertones.

·        09 Tan - For medium to deep skin with neutral undertones.

·        10 Golden Tan - For medium to deep skin tones with golden undertones.

·        11 Amber - For medium to deep skin tones with warm undertones.

·        12 Spiced Almond - For deep skin tones with neutral undertones.

·        13 Chestnut - For deep skin tones with golden undertones.

·        14 Golden Toffee - For deep skin tones with warm undertones.

Packaging

The Milani Conceal + Perfect Foundation comes housed in a sturdy glass bottle, it's quite weighty because of this, I'd be wary of dropping this on hard surfaces. Thankfully it comes with a pump and a good controllable one at that, it's up to you if you want to dispense a full pump or a little dot. The foundation has a scent, but I can't seem to decide whether I like it or not, I liked it at first but I find it strange as well at times.

Shade & Oxidisation

Nars All Day Luminous Weightless Stromboli, Maybelline Fit Me Matte & Poreless 220, Milani Sand Beige 06

Before and after Oxidising

I was very very hopeful of the shade 06 Sand Beige, it's really hard to get hold of samples or try any testers out as the only store that sells them is Beauty Base in Westfield. I looked up on swatches online and went into the store couple of times to swatch and it looked really promising. It's a really good shade and I personally think it's a rare olive shade here in the UK drugstore (Maybelline 220 being the other). It's a wonderful mix of golden yellow beige with some olive. On myself it's a really nice match, it matches and flatters my skin tone nicely. This does oxidise on me, when first applied I absolutely love it, it looks so nice and glowy and pleasantly flatters my complexion, then it gradually starts to oxidise and develops a slight dullish tinge, it's not too bad -I wish it didn't- still an excellent shade and still retains it's yellow undertones but I don't think I'd go down a shade as the undertones don't look as promising. Though something I need to mention is that the oxidisation colour looks horrible around my hyper-pigmentation, I've noticed that when shades are a bit warm or have a dullish tinge in it, it makes my hyper pigmentation look grey regardless of whether I've colour corrected with orange or not. Strange but true, has anyone experienced anything similar?

Texture

The texture of the Milani Foundation is really thick and creamy, it won't budge when you pump it out onto the back of your hand. It's a proper dense liquid foundation. I've used both brushes and sponges and both work well in blending the foundation in but I think the beauty blender is a little more effortless compared to the brush. This formula is interesting, it's really thick but isn't super duper heavy on the skin considering how dense it is. I wouldn't call this a lightweight formula at all, like I mentioned earlier I was hoping it had the skin smoothing yet lightweight texture of the CT Magic Foundation but this one is quite an obvious/heavy texture on the skin. I would recommend this formula for those with combination oily skin. On my dehydrated combination textured skin it's quite heavy and obvious and sinks into all my lines whilst looking unflatteringly satin-y. If you have dry skin or really oil skin I'd stay away from this foundation as this exaggerates dry flakes and can also look and feel oily and greasy if you're very oily. When I've used this with a primer it's not so dewy looking and more of a demi-matte which I prefer with this formula.

Finish

When first applied the finish is beautiful, it's a gorgeous glowy satin finish, my skin looks smooth, poreless and plump, it's kinda obvious that I have makeup on but it looks really good. I absolutely love how flawless it looks at the beginning but then after 5 mins it all changes and starts to go downhill. It hurts me to say this but it looks gross on my skin after it sets. It highlights EVERY minuscular bump and imperfection on my skin, ALL the tiny dots and pores on the surface of my skin are exaggerated, it also settles into all the tiny fine lines running across my entire forehead, the area around my mouth looks really cakey. It exposes all the imperfections that I didn't even know I had. This actually looks worse on me than the Nars All Day Luminous Weightless Foundation (review here) because it's a thicker and heavier formula. I can make the Nars ADLW work for me but I can't always get the Milani to work. It just looks thick, heavy, cakey and obvious on me unfortunately.

Seriously this foundation gets me so upset about my skin, I know I have skin texture issues and it's my biggest downer but I try my best to tackle and treat it, it's not terribly awful but with the Milani Foundation it looks much worse than it actually is and the result is the complete opposite of what I would want from a foundation. Like with every new foundation I always get opinions from others and my sister said it aged my skin so that speaks for itself really. 

This is also quite glowy for an oil free foundation, it does look nice and glowy on my skin at first but after it settles in the shine looks awful, like I always say bumpy shiny skin isn't an attractive look so I make sure to powder it with a skin smoothing powder. I've used my Kick Ass Powder (review here) specifically with this foundation because that the Kick Ass Powder is a foundation perfecter for me and it always makes my base look better, it does help a lot but I can achieve a full flawless look with other full coverage foundations that perform and look better on me (e.g. Too Faced Born This Way (review here)) so the negatives of the Milani aren't worth it.

I've been writing this blogpost in over a span of a month so trust me when I say I've given this foundation many goes and have trialled it with different techniques, so I've been updating and tweaking the post here and there following my experiences. On a positive note I've figured out a way how to make it work with my skin, because this foundation is quite pigmented I've realised I don't need to use a lot of product to achieve the finish and look I want. On well prepped and moisturised skin I use a few drops of The Ordinary High Spread-ability Fluid Primer (let me know if you want a review), I use only 4x 5p dabs of foundation and blend it out with a brush or sponge and achieve medium coverage, minimal caking and settling in lines and a smooth natural finish. At first I used to use around a pump and a half and it was far too cakey for my liking, now I use around 3/4 of a pump. I finally set it lightly with either Soap & Glory Kick Ass Powder or the Urban Decay Naked Skin Ultra Definition Loose Powder.

Also like I mentioned earlier this looks horrible on my under eye and around my mouth, it makes me look awfully grey even when I've colour corrected which is strange because my under eye circles aren't that bad at all, so what I do is avoid those areas and use a concealer there instead or just go in lightly with the foundation using minimal product.

Feel

The Milani Foundation doesn't feel as heavy on the skin than how it looks but I wouldn't regard it as a super lightweight formula because of how dense and creamy the formula is. I think there are definitely formulas out there that are much lighter on the skin. Even though there's a setting factor there is no tight or tautening feeling on the skin and it's not drying either. Being oil free it's quite a creamy formula, I would recommend setting this as it can feel quite tacky and emollient without any powder. Once set with powder you may be able to feel product on the skin as the product build up might make it more obvious, though this is dependable on how much you use, otherwise it's a fairly comfortable formula. I use probably 3/4 of a pump and get a light comfortable feel.

Coverage

One thing that I can rate is the coverage of this drugstore foundation, you can definitely achieve full coverage with it even though full coverage with this formula makes me look cakey. It's quite impressive how well this covers and most definitely performs to its name and claims. I usually prefer medium coverage but don't mind a flawless face once in a while hence why I was willing to give this a go. Like I mentioned earlier I love how it looks on me when I first apply it, full flawless glowy coverage but how it looks afterwards is what puts me off. I can't stand how mask like it looks on me. As a concealer its not bad, but it's not the most pigmented concealer, it's more of a full coverage foundation than a highly pigmented concealer so if you have dark or stubborn imperfections you may want to go in with a separate concealer. For example one layer of this doesn't conceal my hyper pigmentation or my dark circles and my dark circles aren't that bad. It also creases a lot under my eyes and laugh lines so make sure you set it well if you use it there. I personally think there are better foundations out there which offer full coverage but are much more lighter on the skin but for a drugstore foundation and the price point this is great.

Build-ability

This foundation blends pretty well on the skin and does build equally well too, I haven't needed any more than two layers and have never had any issues of patchiness or cakiness whilst building the Milani, the foundation looks cakey on my skin but its not a cakey formula if that makes sense, meaning I think it's my skin type that disagrees with the formula. 

Longevity

When I first used to use this foundation it made my skin look awful and I usually ended up running to the bathroom to wash it off after 20 minutes because I refused to display such awful makeup to anyone. As the minutes went by it used to look worse and worse, by the 8th hour it started to separate and break up as well as look quite oily, not pretty. But now that I've figured out a routine that works with me I can make this last a decent amount of time without it looking horrible. This formula does sink and mesh into the skin well which is why I think it emphasises every irregularity on my skin but it's not at all transfer proof, it does transfer really easily onto anything it comes into contact with so definitely set it well. 

Overall Thoughts

I do feel really alienated when the vast majority of masses rave about a certain product and I feel the complete opposite way about it. The Milani Foundation is one of those products unfortunately (like the Maybelline Fit Me Matte & Poreless Foundation (review here)). Like is my skin really that difficult to cater to? I'm just not keen on how the Milani looks on me, when I wear foundation I want it to make my skin look as perfected as is possible working in line with my issues whilst keeping it as skin like as possible, this formula isn't skin beautifying on me at all, I can make it work and the shade is pretty decent but I have other foundations and formulas that don't require as much work. I know that when you have skin imperfections and irregularities it's harder to imitate beautiful healthy skin in an undetectable way but I usually tend to strike a balance where you might be able to see makeup on my skin but it's smooth even looking makeup and skin enhancing at the same time. I reckon the smoother your skin is the better the Milani Foundation will look on you. Please if there's anyone out there that feels the same way as I do, do comment down below as I feel awful for feeling and writing so negatively about such a raved product. All in all as usual I hope this review was helpful.

P.S. I think this may be very similar to the Clinique Beyond Perfecting Foundation (review now HERE- It's SO much better than the Milani! I frickin' LOVE it!!!), I have a sample and they're very similar.

Quick Round-up

Pros

- Medium to full coverage

- Very pigmented

- Smooth creamy texture

- Looks really flawless and glowy (at first - on me anyway)

- Satin finish

- Shade 06 Sand Beige is a good yellow olive shade for those who struggle to find good olive shades

- Best for combination to slightly oily skin types

Cons

- Thick texture

- Sets and sits horribly on my skin

- Highlights texture and sinks into my lines and pores (on me)

- Can look cakey and obvious (on me)

- Oxidises

- Not suitable for very oily skin or very dry skin

- Formula just didn't work for my skin unfortunately