The past few years have probably been the ‘Era of the BB cream’, with BB Creams from major cosmetics lines being released in North America, and Garnier releasing Australia’s ‘first BB Cream’, their Miracle Skin Perfector. So I think it’s very timely that mybbcream.com.au has established itself to officially bring Korean BB Creams Australia! The lovely people at mybbcream has sent me a few SKIN79 BB Creams to review. Interestingly, I had stopped using Korean BB Creams after I branched out to other base makeup products like my favourite, Chanel Aqualumiere, so I was interested to see how my opinion about BB Cream may have changed over time.
First of all, for those who have just joined us, I should probably explain what BB cream actually is. Before attempting this part I did a little digging for info out on the interwebs so I could actually talk about it with some confidence. I think because BB Cream doesn’t fall into some specific makeup category, and you can’t just say ‘it’s a blah’, understanding it requires a bit of context.
BB, originally an acronym for ‘Blemish Balm’, was developed by German dermatologist Christine Schrammek as both a skin treatment and light blemish coverage for laser surgery patients to help regenerate the skin after surgery. Dr Schrammek still sells her original BB Cream in her line, but not many people would even know this. Since the idea hit Korea in the 80s, BB Cream began to be produced by Korean companies, and was made explosively popular due to personal endorsements from Korean drama celebrities who swore by the product to give them flawless porcelain skin. The notoriety of BB Creams first reached Japan, then the rest of Asia, and it has been reported that the sale of BB Creams in Korea to visitors from Japan make up a sizable chunk of income for BB Cream brands.
Major Korean BB Cream brands such as Dr. Jart continue to emphasize the tradition of BB Cream as first and foremost a skin treatment, containing ingredients to reduce pore size, increase skin purity, and even whiten skin tone. However, among long time BB Cream users, it is seen as a preferred base makeup alternative to address the issues with traditional foundation, such as looking too matte or unnatural, applying too heavy, and being damaging to the skin. BB Creams are also marketed as a time and money saving all in one one-step base makeup product, being all at once, moisturiser, primer, foundation and sunblock. But I think this makes it difficult to distinguish BB Cream from tinted moisturisers already in the market that make similar promises.
Now on to the review!
SKIN79 Lovely Girl is a BB Cream marketed towards young skin to both provide moisture and protection and control sebum. I think this hits the spot for problems that generally plague young skin. Its promises are as follows:
It has special skin care properties which is soothing, redness, irritated skin even coverage.
Then on the back:
Mulberry Extract and Marigold Extract soothe and supply rough skin with moisture. Herb Complex and Chlorella Extra make juniors’ skin healthy and keep your face moist all day long. It protects your face from external environments and naturally covers blemish of your face efficiently, makes the skin look more beautiful. It includes porosity powder which is good at sebum absorption so it can control sebum properly as well as keeps the skin neatly for a long time.
So first of all, lets talk about the packaging. I’m not in love with this simple light pink and silver design, and feel that it looks a little cheap, but I really appreciate that SKIN79 is serious about hygiene in their products. With the nozzle firmly taped, you know that this is a brand new product fresh from the factory.
One complaint I have about the packaging is that the lid is not entirely tight and secure, and your nozzle will get all messy, like this.
And now for the cream itself. Here’s what the formula looks like out of the tube. You can see that it’s definitely several shades lighter than my skin! Also Lovely Girl has a light refreshing citrus scent, which I think is quite appropriate for its theme of catering for young skin.
Here’s how it looks after blending. The formula is quite thick and sticky so a dabbing or patting action is better for blending. I would just use my fingers as sponges seem to just absorb most of it.
The finish is somewhere between matte and dewy. I’m sensitive about my skin looking shiny, so I don’t like the dewy look personally, but this is easily matted out with a light dusting of powder.
With a light layer of Candy Doll Mineral Powder over the top, Lovely Girl offers my skin a medium degree of coverage, and visibly evens out my skin tone and texture. My skin looks so clear after application.
Now this is when I should make the comment that the amount of coverage offered by Lovely Girl and most BB Creams would probably only be sufficient people with already good skin. However, I wouldn’t say I have very good skin. I have a lot of blemish scars, as you can see in the below pictures. Lovely Girl doesn’t completely cover up these blemishes, but I don’t think you really need to make these imperfections completely disappear for your skin to look clear, especially if this means looking like you’re caked in foundation.
As for it’s promises of being soothing for irritated sk
in, I wore this BB Cream every day for the past week and while in this time it did not improve the irritation and redness I usually get around my note, I did not break out at all. As a plus, my skin felt moist all day long. This also seemed to help with my usually oily skin.
(I think this might be the product that gets me back into using BB Creams.)
One thing you’ll have to be prepared for, if you have tanned skin tone like mine, is that it will make you pale! But I am quite confident when I say that this will still look really natural. It’s quite popular among Asian people to buy foundation a few shades lighter to get the fair look – my mother’s been doing for decades.
Anyway I got a test group (my friends and co-workers) to tell me if they thought there was anything different with my skin the day I wore this BB Cream. While my boyfriend rightly identified that my skin looked whiter, everyone else commented only that my skin looked really clear.
- Medium coverage that should be sufficient to cover up minor blemishes
- Effectively evens out skin tone and texture
- Makes skin appear porcelain, but not unnaturally pale
- Offers the right amount of moisture and sebum reduction for oily or combination skin
- Gives that highly sought after light dewy finish
- Likely to make a great primer as it visibly helps makeup adhere better and last longer
- The formula is of a sticky consistency, making it slightly difficult to apply evenly. However, this is easily addressed by getting the right amount on the palms of your hands and patting/dabbing it over your face.
- Does not seem to help, and may even emphasize, dry skin around the nose and mouth.
- Only comes in one light shade and may not be suitable for all skin tones.
I first caught wind of this vendor when I saw their special offer on http://www.ouffer.com/. It seemed clear to me that this company was interested not only to sell BB Cream to current fans of BB Cream in Australia (mostly Asian customers), but also to bring Korea BB Cream into the main stream. If this is one of their goals then I’m right behind them – in my mind Korean BB Creams are still the ‘original’ and the best.
This from their website:
If you are wondering which BB cream is right for you, check out mybbcream’s skin type analysis and their 2 step process to picking your perfect product!
I had a read of their Wholesale page and it looks like if you can get 4 of your friends together to buy and share, you can get 1/4 knocked off the price! This from the website:
- Get any 5 BB Creams & enjoy 25% discount!
- Get any 10 BB Creams & enjoy 30% discount!
- Get any 20 BB Creams & enjoy 35% discount! (Mix-and-match accepted)
Also, for a limited time you’ll get miniatures as free gifts of any purchase of full sized BB Cream!
As well as BB Creams, Mybbcream stocks an impressive range of other Korean beauty products from makeup to skincare.
They have a great well structured and easily to navigate website – I really hope you guys check it out!
And here’s where I again plug my giveaway! Join while you still can!
