Current Foundation Favourite

Benefit High Beam £18.50 & Rimmel Wake Me Up Founation £8.99
When it comes to foundation, I have to admit I've become a bit of a snob and only tend to head to the premium counters for new purchases. Recently though Rimmel Wake Me Up has had so much hype I couldn't resist any longer! At £8.99, its probably the least expensive foundation I own and I've actually really liked using it over the last week.

I tried this on its own to begin with and found that it gave my skin a really fresh glow, while at the same time being quite a satin finish and not dewy and 'wet' looking as I expected. This is down to the tiny particles of mineral pearls which you can just about make out in the bottle. It's pretty similar in principle to Revlon's Photoready foundation but the pigments are no way near as large and glittery as they're actually unnoticeable on the skin. Its quite a creamy formula which works really well buffed in with a flat top brush and I've even found it smooths out my skin quite a bit. The coverage is medium at first, but very easily buildable to give a flawless finish.

All in all I'm really impressed with this 'drug store' foundation and have found myself reaching for it on a daily basis. The only bad things I'd have to say about it are the staying power, which doesn't quite get me through a full day at work without a top up, and the colour range! Obviously a brand like Rimmel are only going to make room for the most popular colours on their shelves but I wish there would be a better colour choice for the paler minority! This shade Ivory is the lightest they offer and it's still a little dark for me.

What I've found makes this foundation really amazing however, is Benefit's High Beam. I've been loving using the L'Oreal Lumi Magique Primer that I mentioned in my March Favourites, so much so that I've used it all up! Having yet to repurchase it (which I still very much intend to do) I dug out my old bottle of High Beam which is pretty much an identical pink version. I have a bit of a love hate relationship with this product as I've always thought it was beautiful but never really mastered putting a cream highlighter on top of foundation. I've never actually used it all over as a base though so I popped it all over before using Wake Me Up and wow, the glow this combination gives is really amazing!

Has anyone else tried this primer/foundation combo?