THANK GOD IT'S FAVOURITES: L’Oréal Lumi Magique Foundation

Surprise! This is the new name of our favourites feature, all about the products that give us special butterflies in our tummies.  I’ve been using L’Oréal's Lumi Magique foundation for around four years now, which is a long time for someone who tries new products as often as I do, and I am deeply, passionately in love with it.

I wear the shade Rose Pearl, which is the lightest colour and a great match for me. The foundation comes in three shades – Rose, Beige and Gold – and then a selection of different tones for each one. Rose Pearl is a peachy colour, lovely for me because my skin is yellow-toned and it balances it out perfectly. There isn’t a huge range of colours, so if your skin is darker you’d probably want to look more at the True Match line (which I tried recently and also quite liked), but within the spectrum it does have the differing tones make it easy to get a close match.

Lumi Magique is billed as a light-infusing foundation – the bottle says it will give you ‘flawless skin as if lit from within’ and while I don’t exactly walk around looking like a lightbulb, I do find it very brightening and illuminating. Because I’m pale with very dark hair and eyes, it’s easy for me to look a bit sallow, especially if I’ve had no sleep, so any foundation that makes me look more ‘pale and interesting’ and less ‘possibly dead’ is a winner. It also somehow manages to pull off that elusive dewy look that everyone bangs on about without making me look oily or sweaty (yum).

The coverage this foundation gives is great, especially considering it’s a mid-range brand (£10.99 from Boots). I usually apply it with a brush, but when I first started using it I applied it with my fingers and you can still get incredible coverage. In the pictures you can see one thin layer (done with a brush) has covered all my weird little freckles and evened out whatever that situation with my complexion was, and it still looks very natural and subtle. It’s a liquid foundation but it doesn’t highlight any dry patches or blemishes, and it only takes one pump to cover my whole face, meaning I can go months between repurchases (yay!).

I never reapply foundation during the day - sometimes I’ll touch up concealer if I’m going out after work or if I’ve had some kind of face-related mishap – and this foundation never makes me feel like I need to. The wear is great, it doesn’t become patchy the way I’ve found some foundations do, and the coverage remains solid even without using lots of powder on top. It’s also very easy to remove and never feels like it’s clogging my pores or irritating my very sensitive skin. Honestly, if this foundation were human, I would marry it. That’s just because it’s a really incredible foundation, not because I’m sad and alone. I swear.