L'oreal Touche Magique

As my friends know, I don't get much sleep. As a result of long term sleep deprivation, I have some pretty bad eye bags and dark circles. These are some concealers that have helped me. They are the L'oreal Touche Magique Concealers. Though highly raved and compared to the YSL's Touche Eclat I wouldn't say they are life saving, but they do work decently. Wish I owned the Touche Eclat so that I could compare, but I'm a poor student and thus making do with these. At just over SGD$20 (I think), I wouldn't say they are very cheap either, but when there's a 20% off, they might just be worth getting. 

So far I've only seen 2 shades stocked in the local stores, which I've shown above. There is no shade printed on the tube, only on a sticker that needs to be torn off in order to open the concealer (stupid design). I have long torn mine off, but if my memory serves me well, I think the shades are N 3-4-5 and W 3-4-5. I have no idea why they differ from the shades in the states, nor why we have such a limited range.

It is packaged with a inbuilt brush, the bottom of the tube is twisted to get product onto the brush. The cover doesn't snap on to the back of the tube (this is a pet peeve of mine). There doesn't seem to be much product, the twisting to dispense product seems to be a little time delayed, i.e, some twists don't get much product, then you hit one twist which gives way too much. 

Inbuilt brushes might be deemed by some unhygienic, but I'm okay with that. I usually dab onto my hand and apply with a brush or fingers. The brush is quite decent though, soft enough to be used on the face/eye area. One problem though is that if you're not careful with capping and the bristles get caught, they bend out of shape really easily. 

Taken without flash. Leftmost is MAC Select Coverup in NC30. The 2 on the right are L'oreal Touche Magique. 

credits for mac studiosculpt swatches: http://karlasugar.net/2009/07/mac-studio-sculpt-foundation/

Taken with flash in sunlight. The dark and light shades seem to be extremely dark and light don't they? They also have quite a beige/pink undertone. The formula is supposed to be light reflecting, but the effect is quite subtle and there are no visible glitters. Also, strangely enough, though there seems to be a great disparity in the shades, on the face when blended out, it's not very noticeable if the concealer's too dark or light for me.

The beige/pink undertone also seems to work well with dark rings better than a yellow based concealer.

Here are my eye rings. Photographed, they are washed out by the sun, but irl they're quite bad. The concealer ( I use a mixture of both dark and light. First dark, then light) seems to do a pretty good job at concealing, but the coverage is not full.

I find that because it works by reflecting the light and tricking the eye, the undereye looks brighter, which is quite nice. However the dark circles are still there upon closer observation and under certain lighting conditions. One way to get around this is to layer this on top of another concealer with better coverage, hopefully that will not cake too bad.

This concealer also settles into some of my fine lines, but not all. I also find that the wearing time is not that great if not set with powder. Maybe about 5 hours. It works okay when reapplied though, does not get cakey. It also does not dry out the eye area, nor has broken me out.

This concealer in the lighter shade works as a subtle highlighter as well. I can't use it as a concealer for spots because the shades are quite off. In conclusion, I like this concealer best only when layered or for days I do not feel like concealing everything. Someone with less severe eye conditions would love this though!


Summary:

Pros:

• Nice consistency
• Reflects light rather than full concealing, hence brightens the face really nicely
• Can be used as highlighter
• Not drying
• Doesn't settle too badly into fine lines

Cons:

• Packaging is horrible and not very sanitary
• Expensive for the amount of product (for me at least)
• Limited shades available in Singapore
• Not full coverage