Dream a Little Dream

Maybelline's Dream Smooth Mousse Ultra Hydrating Cream Whipped Foundation Review by Cavewoman

Is there any one makeup item that causes more frustration than foundation? If you're a reader of Blogdorf, chances are you're a makeup lover who has quite possibly found this to be true for yourself. I know it has for me, almost all my life. Oh, there have been some wonderful foundations that I have found over the years, perfect formulas for my skin type at the time, perfect match in terms of color, some true Holy Grails. And then the rumors start to fly, and you hear the dreaded "d" word -- discontinued! Or the "r" word, reformulated. These words pierce the brain of any makeup lover who has found a perfect product, especially foundation, and send us into panic mode. What will we do? Hoard bottles and bottles and hope they don't spoil or change while being stored? And how even would we store them? Next to the Smuckers jars in the fridge? In a dark closet where we may even forget we stashed them? Or do we just run out and start the search all over again?

I've gone through all of this. Starting long ago with the wonderful Lancome Maqui-Libre, which I used for years, I know what it's like when you go to the counter to buy a beloved product and are told "It's discontinued, but here, try this one! It's new and fabulous!" Well, most of the time, it isn't. And it is not even close to being a decent substitute. If I could even remember the shade of Maqui-Libre that I used, I'd scour ebay for it.
Another amazing foundation that I loved for years was Rimmel Recover. Housed in a tacky cheap pink opaque bottle, I bought it on a whim from the local drugstore, just guessing at my shade from looking at the little "shade selector" color dot on the bottle. I'm pretty sure they were BOGOF that day (that means Buy One Get One Free) and I got two of them. Within days of trying out this foundation, and realizing how beautiful it looked on my skin, I went back to buy two more. It's long gone now, but I'm still hoarding my last bottle.

In between finding the perfect foundation I've had some decent hits and miserable misses. From the most high-end brands (La Prairie and La Mer) to the lowest price drugstore items (Wet N Wild) I've tried so many I can't even remember. Two years ago I had given up and decided to just go to Prescriptives, where a wonderful makeup artist concocted my perfect match and formula with what they called Custom Blend. She mixed and tested for over an hour, and when she was finished, I had a bottle of my best color match ever, and a formula that moisturized, gave a little glow, and was as good as I could ever hope for in every way. When Prescriptives announced that the brand was closing, I had another bottle made. It was nowhere close to the first. I don't know why, when my first makeup artist had meticulously written down the formula, to the last drop.

And so in the last year, I'd given up on even looking at new products that all the makep brands were offering. I'd resorted to using a tinted moisturizer (Dior Hydra Life, it's wonderful!) which I found last Fall at Sephora. It got me through the Winter. With that, and my precious Rimmel, and the last bit of the original Prescriptives Custom Blend, I was ok, until something runs out, anyway.

So last week, Mom and I were in the grocery store, and I was checking to see if there were any new fun nail polish colors in the cosmetic area, and I spotted a display for the brand new Maybelline Dream Smooth Mousse Ultra-Hydrating Cream-Whipped Foundation. I liked all the words. And I especially liked the row of tiny tester jars, one for each shade. Mom went on to the next aisle, and I started to test, with memories of my discovery of Rimmel Recover and how taking a chance on that one had been such a great success. I narrowed my color choices to two, and selected the one I thought might be The One.

I came home with #180 Nude Beige. For the record, I'm kind of pale, with pinkish undertones despite my Italian-Sicilian heritage. I'm hard to match in foundation shades. The closest I can come in MAC is NW20 and then it's not really that perfect.
I opened the jar of Maybelline and grabbed my beautyblender sponge.

The jar has two compartments. Unscrew the lid, and the foundation sits in the jar base. Flip open the top of the lid, and you'll find a nicely shaped flat sponge. I love my beautyblender so I chose to use it instead of the enclosed sponge. I twisted the beautyblender onto the foundation (wow, creamy!) and tapped a bit onto my face. The first thing I noticed was what a perfect match the color was! I could barely see where I had applied it. The second thing I noticed was that my pores seemed to disappear! And I hadn't even applied a primer! The formula has a glow, not sparkly, not dewy, just a fresh natural appearance. My skin felt so comfortable, the formula is as light as air, and application was completely effortless. With just a few taps of the beautyblender, I had finished a perfect application.

A few hours later, I went back to the mirror to check out my new discovery. I was amazed. The formula appears on the skin to be almost identical to the Rimmel Recover, without the teeny sparkles. It felt so moisturizing that I did not feel any discomfort from not applying a separate moisturizer underneath. It appeared as if the foundation had just melted beautifully into my skin, no visible pores, no dry patches, no creasing, and still glowy and fresh-looking.
I tested the foundation again the following day, and it lasted all day with absolutely no uneven wear and no changing color.
And yesterday when I wore it, Ms. Blogdorf exclaimed over how lovely it looked on my skin. We got a good laugh over it because after all of the high-end fabulous makeup lines we've tried, all of the expensive foundations we've loved, here I was back in love with a $8.49 drugstore foundation!

There are two things I have discovered over the years of testing and loving and hating and tossing and trying. First of all, now that I have hit my post-menopausal years, I cannot wear oil-free foundations. They cake and dry out my skin and change color and look horrible on me. The lighter the formula, in terms of coverage, the better I like it on me. The new Maybelline appears to be a light-to-medium coverage and I am thinking it would be buildable in problem areas if that's an issue for you. Secondly, I try to avoid foundations with sunscreen, especially titanium dioxide. I have found that when TI is used as a sunscreen it literally sucks the life out of my skin, and the foundation dries out and sits on top of my skin looking like a mask, wearing unevenly, pulling moisture out of my face, and just generally looking terrible. So, for me, an oil-free formula does not work well, and I look always for foundations without sunscreen, or at least a chemical sunscreen and not a physical sunscreen. I cannot find any SPF listing on the new Maybelline, so perhaps it does not have a sunscreen rating. That is fine by me! The new Maybelline is perfect! It's everything I loved about my former favorites, and I feel no need to look any further. For now, anyway. And I even feel a little bit smug, and very clever, to have discovered a great product at an unbelievable price. I'm so happy I took a chance on this wonderful new product from the venerable Maybelline New York.

Disclosure: The reviewer purchased this item for holy grail purposes.