The NYX Total Control Drop Foundation* is one of those potential cult products that I’ve had my eye on for ages! It’s been available is the US for months now and on Instagram teasing and intriguing me for what seems like forever, ha ha. Anyway, it finally launched in the UK/ Ireland earlier this month and I’ve been trialling it. I could have had this post up earlier but especially with skin/ base products, in my opinion a first impression just won’t cut it! I feel like you definitely need to wear it and give it a good go with different application techniques and products paired with it before passing judgement!
The thing that I noticed first, was the shade range. 24 shades ranging from the palest of pale (I’m talking only slightly off white) to deep espresso and everywhere in between. Pretty impressive with drugstore foundations generally falling short in the shade range area. You’re likely to find a shade to suit and if not, it’s affordable enough if you need to pick up 2 if you do need to mix to get your perfect shade. The only issue at the moment is that it’s currently not available to swatch in store (it will be, eventually although possibly just a select shade range) which makes it difficult to find your right shade. I’ll include some of my own swatch comparisons next to some of my other mostly worn foundations bellow. I’d firstly recommend searching social media and YouTube for swatches/ applications on similar skin tones as yourself. Secondly, the Temptalia Foundation Matrix is a brilliant tool for colour matching base products. Obviously not guaranteed, but pretty spot on in my experience. You input currently used products and that helps it find you matches in your chosen formula. Here are those comparison swatches…
So as you can see from the picture, my shade is 06 Vanilla. I could wear other shades, but this is the closest to my skin tone. I’ve never been a shade 06 in anything!! Baring in mind I was convinced I’d be the shade 02 Alabaster (a whole 4 shades lighter than I actually am!), the lightest shades do run very light. That’s great though, typical drugstore foundations usually run a lot darker and I struggle to match to the lightest, never mind those of you that might be lighter than me again! The NYX Total Control Drops also come in variety of tones, cool, neutral and warm which is amazing.
As well as the foundation, a Total Control Drop Foundation Brush* was launched too. I already have a few similar densely packed, synthetic and slightly curved brushes and I tend not to reach for them at all in favour of my usual buffing brush (Morphe M439*). Not only that, I’d seen all not great reviews everywhere so far so decided to give it a miss. I’d also recommend not dropping the foundation directly on to a buffing brush as demonstrated by NYX themselves, it just seems to be absorbed in to the brush and applies little to no coverage on to your skin. Even with other foundations this doesn’t happen, so I imagine it’s mainly due to the very watery nature of the TCDF formula. Even though I do use a brush to apply other foundations, for this one and for me personally though I much prefer a beauty blender*. Whether its my skin that’s a bit textured at the moment, but applying it with a brush just seemed to make the product sit in every pore and cling to everywhere it shouldn’t! It works best for me with a damp beauty blender and actually buffs into the skin perfectly rather than just sitting on top.
A bit of what NYX has to say about it:
• Sheer to full, complete custom coverage
• Velvet matte finish
The TCDF is affordable which is great, however I was quite surprised by the size of the bottle. It’s tiny! Even though it’s more of a concentrated coverage it’s only a 13ml bottle, baring in mind that the Marc Jacobs Re (Marc) Able Concentrate is 22ml (granted about 3 times more expensive) and the average regular foundation is approx 30ml, it is pretty small in comparison. The way I see it though, it’s great for travel/ super portable and won’t break the bank when it does come time to replace it if I do. NYX say that for light coverage use 2 + drops, medium coverage use 3 + drops and for full coverage 4 +. If that was the case, the bottle would probably last you a whole lot longer, however you’d need pretty near perfect skin to begin with to use those exact amounts. To get a good medium natural coverage, I’ve been using 5-6 drops. It builds really well and I have built it up to full coverage which meant about twice that in drops to achieve a full cover (10-12 drops + depending on your skin). It still didn’t look super heavy or cakey even built up, but personally I think this foundation works best for a good medium coverage (5-6 drops) and then spot concealing any areas that need more coverage if needed. It does set to a lovely velvety matte finish and still leaves skin looking radiant and not flat. Here’s me pre setting powder (complete with weird positioned mouth and invisible brows, ha ha)…
Other products go over the top of it really well and I’ve tried it with my normal skincare/ primer (which I always like to do for foundations) and variations to see how it preformed and it’s an adaptable little guy…I feel like you could slide this easily in to your current routine without switching up anything you love/ use already which another plus point. I was pleasantly surprised with the staying power of this. I did get slight wear towards the end of the day around my chin (even my beloved KVD Lock It does this, I’m a face toucher, ugh) and my oils did come through after a few hours which is totally normal for me with anything (and nothing a quick blot won’t fix) but over all, it did last well and even stayed looking fresh in my oilier areas where a lot of other foundations can separate and go gross. I have heard others saying it oxidises slightly on them, but have to say it didn’t seem to at all on me even after a powder touch up.
I’m impressed! This foundation has outperformed some equivalent high end formulas for me and would be a great affordable choice for pretty much any skin tone and type in my opinion. I like it…how it looks, feels, lasts. This is definitely making it to my everyday ‘go to’ makeup drawer for sure and I’m even trusting it to take away with me this weekend as a daytime lighter cover alternative to my KVD Lock It.
If you try it, I’d love to know what you think of it…hate it or rate it, leave me a comment bellow!
You can get the NYX Total Control Drop Foundation now from Boots* or nyxcosmetics.co.uk
Lyd x
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Nice review. I love blending it using beauty blender than brush..