Product Review- Almay CC Cream

Almay Smart Shade CC Cream Review



From the Brand: Almay’s new Smart Shade CC cream is the perfect marriage of lightweight foundation + clarity enhancing skin care for beautiful coverage now and beautiful skin later. The lightweight formula:

Instantly:
1. Covers imperfections flawlessly
2. Corrects discolorations

Over time:
1. Brightens and evens natural skin tone
2. Helps prevent future damage with SPF 35

Retails for:  $9.99


Where to Buy:  Target, Walmart, Walgreens, CVS, Ulta, and anywhere else I forgot to mention that sells drugstore brand makeup


My Thoughts:  This was my first first reaction video on my YouTube channel, and at the time I'm writing this it's still the only one I've filmed and posted.  I have a few more foundation products to test out in this format, but I haven't been able to find a way to balance my time between my work as a makeup artist and writing the blog reviews you've come to know and expect from me every day.  I feel as though it's a lot easier for me to test the products out on myself when doing my own makeup, or even on set if I'm feeling bold enough {and confident enough that I can fix it if it goes horribly wrong}, and then write out how I feel at a later date after several uses rather than filming a video of a new product sight unseen and then doing basically two more videos throughout the day and then editing it all together to put up on my YouTube channel.  In the freelance world, it's either feast or famine when work comes in, and in September and October I've been very fortunate that it's all seems to come in big waves that keep me working several days in a row and then allow me just enough time to catch up on rest, a wee bit of housework, and some time to knock out as many blog reviews as I can before crashing back down into the next set of shoots and events.

All that being said, this is still a makeup review article, so I guess I should talk a bit about the makeup itself.  You can watch the video for more information, but the gist of it is that this product is great for those who only need a little bit of coverage and are more concerned with sun protection and hydration.  I haven't liked it enough to use for a period of time appropriate to test any claims on it evening out skin tone over time, but for the immediate application it was much more on the sheer side.  For my level of freckles/sun damage, it didn't cut it for me.  I have to go back in with concealer too much, and then powder to really set everything and dull down the shine caused by the thick moisturizers.  It also has a heavy SPF smell, which I don't really like either.

Hopefully I haven't given away the entire video!  Please take a second to watch it and give me some feedback!  Would you like to see more first reaction videos?  Or would you prefer that I supplement my written reviews with demonstrations on how the products work on the face/body? Or am I just annoying and you don't want to see my face at all?! haha.


Final Verdict:  I went through different phases with this CC cream, from hating it to loving it back to hating it.  In the end I think I settled on not minding it, but I won't find myself reaching for this on a regular basis.




 

**Disclaimer: As with all my product reviews, I was not paid by the cosmetic company to provide feedback or review/promote their products. All the opinions expressed in this article are my own. These items were purchased with my own money. For more information on my policies, please view my Let's Chat page.