It’s week three of our September Beauty Series, and this week we are exploring Maskcara Beauty! Maskcara Beauty is a newer direct sales company founded by blogger Cara Brooks and their consultants are referred to as “artists”. Tegan Kesler is a Maskcara Beauty Artist who earlier this week wrote us a fabulous guest blog explaining how she gets her perfect highlight and contour! Tegan sent me the Maskcara Beauty IIID Foundation HAC which translates in simple terms to a highlight and contour duo that works as a foundation that gives your face 3D depth instead of the “flat” look you get with traditional foundations. You can read more about the concept in Tegan’s guest blog post! It’s a super innovative new way of applying foundation that I had to experience for myself.
The packaging is stunning to say the least and what Tegan said was the cherry on top to why she joined this company. The tins are all unique and display beautiful imagery.
I also recieved a magnetic compact to put the tins in which was very asthetically pleasing, wonderfully handy, with a great quality mirror and a very helpful diagram explaining where to apply my highlight and contour.
Even with the diagram and some tips from Tegan, I was very intimidated at first. I’d tried other cream contours before and had such a difficult time blending them out that they ended up in my “reject makeup” basket. I tend to prefer a powder contour.
I told Tegan that when I first started playing with the IIID Foundation that I experienced about 50 thousand thoughts and emotions. I had moments of “What the heck have I gotten myself into, this is terrible!” to “OMG best product ever!” and everything in between. It’s a product that comes with a learning curve for sure but as I played with it I figured out how to make it work well for me.
Some things to note, the highlight portion is very, very creamy and soft. A little goes such a long way! If you use too much initially you will have a hard time working with this beeswax based product. However, applied lightly it gives a nice light to medium coverage. It can be built up to fuller coverage but it was a little tricky for me to do that so I prefer it for lighter makeup days. The highlights are bright and warm toned and give your complexion a fresh and awake look. They are used to bring foward and brighten the areas of the face they are applied to. They work perfectly to brighten the undereye area and no separate concealer is even needed, in my opinion! I love that!
The contour shade is used to add definition and depth to your face. These shades are a bit “stiffer” and firm than the highlight shades. I assume because you really want your contour to kind of “stick” where you place it. It still blends out easily…but not too much to where you lose your contour. These are cooler toned to mimic a natural shadow.
Together, they blend seamlessly to give your face definition with just one layer. The finish is quite dewy and glowy. The feel on the skin is kind of odd to me, but not in a bad way. Just odd. It’s not heavy at all. It’s very light feeling! However, it also has a strange way that it kind of sits on top of the skin rather than disappearing or melting into it. It feels smooth and almost a bit tacky when you touch it with your fingers, but not in such a way that it transfers or rubs off. Definitely a unique texture that might not be for everyone, but like I said, I didn’t mind it! My husband said my skin looked “more natural than usual” which I took as a compliment. He mentioned it several times how much he liked how it looked on me.
After using these products numerous times since recieving it, I can say that I prefer to wear it like this on days where I’m going for a “no makeup” makeup look v.s. using it for my “full glam” days. This is not a negative, because my quick natural days happen a lot more often than my all out makeup days. I will often want to throw on just a touch of makeup when I’m working or babysitting, or even when I’m going out for a run so that I look a little more put together but not “made up”. This is perfect for those days because as I mentioned, it gives more definition to your face than traditional foundations. Before, if I just wanted a little coverage on my skin, I could get that with a light layer of foundation but then I’d still need to add a bit of contour, blush and highlight or my face would look flat. By the time I added the other steps I would have so many layers of makeup that I may as well have gone full glam. I’d end up looking like I was trying too hard. Because this works as multiple steps in one layer it is a very quick way to get an even more natural version of what used to take me a lot more time.
For my more glam days, I felt the coverage was a bit too light and as I mentioned, it was a little difficult for me personally to build up, and it was almost too natural looking for my taste so I discovered that using a matte foundation all over on those days and then strategically using the HAC shades to brighten and define over that was a perfect compromise. I’d defintely recommend trying the products this way if for some reason they didn’t work for you in the way they were intended.
I think if you have very oily skin you will need to experiment with different primers, powders and setting sprays but for other skin types it will work well.
I think this is a product I will definitely want to purchase in the future when I run out and I am officially converted to cream contour fan after using Maskcara. At only $12 a tin it’s very comparable price wise to drug store foundations but with much higher quality. The tins are small but you use so little that if used correctly they should last a very long time! I looooovvvvveeee that this direct sales company appeals to a budget conscious makeup enthusiast! If you want to try this product that I enjoyed so much, you can shop for it directly through Teagan’s shopping link or you can join her Facebook group and she can help color match you and answer any further questions you have about this innovative new foundation concept!
Muscles, Miles and Mascara 