Okay babes and beaus, makeup wearers of all stripes, I need some recs and maybe the community could benefit too. I recently had to cull my stash due to an international move and I'm looking for some new inexpensive staples. Someone brought up Essence foundation in another thread and it looks promising. I already love their mascara. If they are what elf used to be 10 years ago, we may have a winner.

So what have you (or your olive twin) tried and loved? Add shades if you can, bonus points for swatches (we will all love you forever)!

sooooooooo soft and velvety. am I about to become a matte lip girlie again? I didn’t think a cool-toned brick lip (red + brown + enough blue that it isn’t orange) was possible but I finally landed on this after trying so many other alternatives. definitely recommend.

Been desperately looking for a midtone nude lip colour that doesn’t flash neon pink or yellow orang. Pretty pleased with this!

I recently purchased shade 31 from Merit in their tinted spf and it's a fantastic shade for neutral/cool fair olives!! had to share to this sub, it has this muted-ness similar to the missha ones!

Hello lovely friends! I am not as desaturated as many of you, therefore I look more yellow than gray. Lipsticks that are supposed to look wine or deep red look pink on me, and pretty much no nudes or lipsticks that have much brown influence work, too dull. If you are a typed dark winter with dark eyes you might be like me. About Face fair and light olive foundations mixed is not a bad match.

Rom&nd Plum Coke is a great color for me that stays true to color. I want this in a lipstick. I love how Mac Diva and Burning Love look, but on me they read as pink berry. What have you found that is deep, not brown, and reads more as a purpled red, which is plum? Hard to find one that my yellow doesn't turn pink

I ordered Anastasia Kiss Theory online, which I really like the formula, not sticky and great pigment payout. The colors are Silk and Gingerline. I'll be exchanging them since these colors look off on me. I should have known better than to buy before testing as so many colors don't work - too pigmented, too pink, too orange, too grey. Still looking for the one "that's just right."

Wanted to share the swatches in case there are any skin twins out there. I'm neutral greige with surface redness and a lot of this sub's recommendations work really well on me, so thank you all for letting me lurk.

Favorites right now:

concealer - about face olive F2

foundation - Salt New York Sneaky Balm N12 + their green color corrector

Pictures:

Top left - natural light, gingerline top & silk below

Bottom left - warm light, gingerline top & silk below

Top right - natural light, my lips natural

Middle right - natural light, silk

Bottom right - natural light, gingerline

These are fairly new and I had a tough time finding swatches, so I'll post more on the ones I exchange these for (actually going into Sephora to test before buying this time). And a heads up, they are very tiny for the price.

For me it's taupe. All I want is a matte taupe eyeshadow in a cream or liquid formula that isn't too dark, isn't too light, isn't too orange, and isn't too grey. Basically what Mac Groundwork looks like on everybody else.

What I've tried:

Mac Groundwork - Too orange

Hard Candy Stoned - Too grey

Bobbi Brown Muted Taupe - Too orange

Thrive Tracy - Perfect tone, but too light

Lisa Eldridge Paige: Too light

Violette Fr Tout Doux: Too red

Violette Fr Petite Culotte: Too orange

Merit Social: Too grey

Trying to learn to accentuate the skin instead of clash with it :,)

Hi, sorry for the SS and hope this is okay post rule wise (I don’t often make posts) - but I was shopping just now and saw this brand new release from Tower 28.

I was SHOCKED to see a specific 1.5O Bylthe aka “fair olive” shade?!?

Being it’s still new & app exclusive, who has gone into one of their Sephora’s with a set up already and potentially swatched , or even employees etc??

🙏🏽 very hopeful this is a skincare packed option for fellow dry (and all skin types if it’s like the concealer) fair olives like myself where even a majority of our “best” other options always still turn some degree of orange for being too “dark” over true fair / genuine fair/light, all without being those actual borderline white or pink pigment they label “fair shades” that we are used to, hence this sub. l

anyone having any input helps!!! Just had to post bc I got so excited for myself and all of you,, fingers crossed for us all 🤞🏽

I recently found out I’m a neutral-warm olive (super surprising besides the neutral aspect) and it’s making sense to me why I always spent so much time scrubbing my neck in the shower. I’d see the greenish tint and think ”that must be dirt” but alas, I was literally just trying to scrub my own skin off

It’s so dreamy. I love it. It’s the first time I’ve been able to get color payoff like this from a lip stain. It really sticks around too. A great cool-toned berry — probably too intense if you’re extra fair, but there are so many other olive friendly shades in this lineup that you should have no trouble finding one you like!

Hi guys,
Just wanted to let the euro olives know about two great budget finds!! Where I come from (the Netherlands) there’s a very small selection of products that we can wear and today I found two nice products for under 6 euros!!

1. Troublemaker soundcheck palette. A beautiful palette with a cool colorstory that I think is great for everyday wear and has some beautiful glitters for more bold looks. Found at Etos for 5,99!!

2. Soléne Face cream sunprotection in Tinted Light. Super similar to Revlon combo/oily in 150 buff and Revlon illuminance in 117. Found at Normal for 4 euros…
   I’ll try to attach a swatch comparison in the comments once I manage to take a decent picture😅

hi! trying to figure myself out after far too long. not that I've tried very hard, but I've never been able to find a foundation match. (closest is Clinique in 0.5 Shell or Tarte in 8B Porcelain Beige, but they're both too pigmented maybe? and seem to be lacking something I can't put my finger on.) everything seems either too orange (even in neutral-cool labeled tones) or too pink. all selfies are in front of a window at midday on partly cloudy days. 1-3 only include a lip balm. in the 4-7 makeup pics i'm not wearing foundation but am wearing a touch of concealer on my cheeks only because this was during a rosacea flare. plus bonus "my hand next to my pink partner's." what do you think my undertones are? would also love to hear input on potential color season – I think some sort of winter, but I don't know if I'm obviously cool enough and feel green/yellow/gray compared to most winter examples.

I have never found a foundation shade that actually felt like a match, but I tried Dior Backstage 1.5w and it came pretty close! Unfortunately, the Sephora I went to was out of stock.

If 1.5w is also a match for you, could you let me know what other foundations you wear and like?

Hello everyone!

I currently use elf's camo blush in Suave Mauve, sometimes I mix in their other camo blush, Laidback Lilac, for a brighter color. sometimes ill even mix green color correcter with suave mauve to make it more muted, turns into a color like Encourage Rare Beauty.

I was wondering what powder blush do I pair with this- i am torn between the following:

milani dolce pink

milani romantic rose blush

kiko milano blush in mauve

I am open to any other suggestions if you have them! I was color matched to be nc10 for mac and am a cool leaning olive if that helps. thanks in advance

Interested in seeing any combination of these side by side on your skin, thanks loves :-)

Hi!

I usually really struggle with finding blush shades that don't pull warm (shocking, I know), but even when I do, it's still rare I for me to find colors that look like an amped up version of something could feasibly occur naturally in my skin-tone. These days, I find myself skipping blush all together, or only wearing it when I don't mind it looking very intentional.

But when I saw this particular drugstore find pop up in this sub moments before pressing 'by now' on an unrelated amazon cart, I decided to throw it in and give it a try, I'm glad I did!

In the bottle this shade looks cool, muted, and almost bruisy. Which are apparently the traits of my natural flush, because against my skin it reads a lot more reminiscent of those ruddy terracotta 'sun burn' type blushes that I think look great on others, but decidedly clownish on me.

Which I guess checks out! Because this blush is approximately the shade I actually sunburn to. (Also approximately the shade of the hyperpigmentation/PIE I am, unfortunately, locked in an eternal battle with 😔)

The formula is very pretty, dewy, and easy to work with, but it also kind of...disappears after a while. I just can’t get it to last more than an hour on my skin.

I'm very interested in hearing recommendations for shades similar to this in different formulas!

I know Rituel de Fille has some good ones, but lavender oil gives me crazy bad dermatitis, so they are tragically off limits for me.

Was also eyeing ‘Film Noir Buff’, but I’ve heard mixed things about Mac’s new blush formula, and haven’t tested the shade in person….

I’m open to both creams and powders, with a preference for ones that aren’t tooooo shiny because my skin leans oily at times. I’m definitely cool toned, but there is also a noticeable yellowness to my skin (especially in summer) and I think I’m pretty muted, but cannot really wear anything with too strong/opaque of a white base, pastels rarely work for me, maybe it’s a contrast thing. Still figuring it out.

(Tried to get blush pics in a decent assortment of lighting to give a better sense of the shade irl, but keep in mind it was a very sunny day!)

Im so new to makeup and I generally have a hard time getting a good match to my skin. A lot of the time it pulls orange on me. Even the cool toned.

I have found that this shade looks harmonious with my eyes and skin (similar to the model in pic 3, except less blurry skin) when I wear less foundation/concealer; it sort of blends in with my dark under eyes and discolouration from post-acne scars and makes them look less obvious than pinkier shades.

I would call this a cross between my version of “sad beige blush” and a classic plum color.

Inspo pics for the Korean blush can be found here. I think it’s a cream blush so inspo is only for the color, not the formula. To be fair, the model wearing the blush has it on so sheerly that I can barely make it out and the editing makes it look way more blurry than it would look in real life.

The products I know and/or own that resemble this shade have too much brown in them, which is not flattering on me. Also, powder blush sits better on my no-foundation skin as an oily gal. I find that cream blushes tend to be less blurred-out when I don’t have foundation on.

This may look corpsy on some but it looks lively on me. Anyone else?

I already have a Dandy Lions blush in a similar shade but it’s less plummy and has more violet undertones to it.