Review: Cover FX Custom Cover Drops

On Tuesday I finally received my much-anticipated online Sephora purchases, which contained the Cover FX Custom Cover Drops.  There is so much hype out there about this product and almost every review I’ve read has been really positive.  I was also running low on foundation and looking for something new so I thought I’d give these a try.

If you haven’t heard about these yet, basically the concept is that you can create a customized foundation.  The drops can be mixed with primer, moisturizer, sunscreen, concealer, etc. and mixed to your desired level of coverage.  1 drop equals light coverage, 2 drops equals medium, 3 equals full, etc.  Smart, right?

Unfortunately I’ve been trying since Tuesday to make these work for me and it’s just not happening. I believe the idea is that you can mix these with products that you currently own, use and love but not one of the moisturizers or primers that I mixed in worked.  Below are the combinations I tried:

• 3 drops Cover FX + 1 squeeze Rimmel Stay Matte Primer
• 3 drops Cover FX + 1 squeeze Rimmel Stay Matte Primer + 1 squeeze Estee Lauder Illuminating Perfecting Primer
• 3 drops Cover FX + 1 or 2 squeeze(s) Estee Lauder Illuminating Perfecting Primer
• 2 or 3 drops Cover FX + 1 squeeze Rimmel Stay Matte Primer + 1 pump First Aid Beauty Skin Rescue Daily Face Cream
• 2 or 3 drops Cover FX + 2 pumps First Aid Beauty Skin Rescue Daily Face Cream
• 2 or 3 drops Cover FX + 1 or 2 scoops Clinique Moisture Surge Extended Thirst Relief moisturizer

A little background on my skin: it’s combination and my t-zone typically gets pretty oily about mid day.  I find it hard to find products that keep my t-zone looking matte but not dry out the rest of my face.  Recently I’ve been using Estee Lauder Double Wear Light Stay-in-Place Foundation and while I like it, I can’t say I love it.  It really is long wearing but I do find it gets a little dry-looking near the end of the day.

So the first day I mixed up the first combination and omg I can’t even describe how horrible this looked on my skin by the end of the day. When applying it (I used my new Beauty Blender) I found it looked a little dry and noticed it was magnifying my pores. I  managed to get it look somewhat presentable and off to work I went.  Throughout the day it got drier and drier and even emphasized some dry patches on my face that I didn’t even know I had!  It also started breaking up on my skin and my face was oily AND flaky.  I couldn’t wait to get home and scrub my face.

The next few days I played around with the various combinations above but still couldn’t get anything to really work.  When I mixed it using just moisturizer I literally had no foundation left on my face by mid-day.  Saturday I thought I’d give it one more try before deciding to return it (I really wanted to like this!) and I mixed it solely with Clinique’s Moisture Surge Extended Thirst Relief Moisturizer.  I had received a deluxe sample of this with my online Sephora order and wow, it is super, duper moisturizing (if you have really dry skin, I’d really recommend giving it a try). I figured if mixing it with a heavy duty moisturizer still made me look dry there really was no hope. So I mixed it up, applied and while it probably looked the best out of all the combinations that I tried, there was still visible dryness and pore magnification.

I admitted defeat and took it back to Sephora.  Thank goodness for their fantastic return policy!  While I was there I picked up a few samples of some Clinique and Lancome foundations that I wanted to try so I’ll see how those work.

The only positive that I can state about these drops was that the colour was pretty much a perfect match to my skin tone, which is rare.  And actually super impressive given that I selected my shade online using the Shade Finder on the Cover FX website.  Also I do think that these would last a really long time because you only use a few drops at a time.  So while they are pricey, they would have some longevity (which always makes me feel better about expensive purchases).

The other reason I didn’t like these – it was a pain to have to mix up everything up each day.  I feel like I already have so many steps in my morning beauty routine and the last thing I need is to add another.  I personally didn’t like the idea of mixing the drops and other product(s) in the palm of my hand as they recommend (too messy and too hard to mix properly), so I mixed them in a lid of an empty container.  I then had to rinse and clean that lid the next morning and along with whatever mixing tool I used.  I suppose that probably sounds a little lazy; maybe I’d feel different about doing if I actually liked the product but I kind of feel like I’d really need to LOVE it in order to make those extra steps worth it.

So that’s my review.  Not a product that worked for me but obviously it works for many others out there!  If you’ve given these a try I’d love to hear your take on them!  Meanwhile I’m still on the hunt for my perfect foundation…

Find it: Sephora online; CoverFX website

Cost: $44.00 CAD for 0.5 oz.

Until next time!