Hit Me BB One More Time – Erborian BB Crème Au Ginseng Korean Formula

East meets West in the Erborian French Korean skin care line. I swooned at the lovely display at Sephora. The Francophile and Korean skincare fanatic goddess in me pole vaulted (a la 50 Shades of Heeeey.) Like fusion food, it promises exciting synergies between two totally divergent cultures. I felt butterflies but balked at the $61 price tag for the Pate au Ginseng Mask. But there was a consolation item: the Erborian BB cream (if you can count $39 BB cream as consolation. Oh wait, but it’s crème, oohlala, so it’s much classier than your plebeian cream.)

The packaging is elegant yet exotic. Whoever did the design packaging for Erborian really knows how to get to the lizard longing part of my brain from my optic nerves. Just so temptingly elegant.

I even overlooked the fact that it contains stuff I’m allergic to (Ethylhexyl Methoxycinnamate, Octinoxate.) Maybe I can trick my skin into not knowing by applying barrier cream, I mean crème, I thought.

I picked the Dore color because the BB cream only comes in Clair or Dore. Clair means clear and is a very pale color for my skin tone. Dore means gold so I excitedly grabbed what promises to be a beautiful golden glow BB. I swatched it at Sephora and it blended perfectly on my hand.

But it is chalky as shit, and the undertone is not really golden but more like gray. OK, maybe in my excitement I put on TOO much. Upon first application, I noted that I look pale and ashy.

It doesn’t look like that in the photo, but I am at least 2 shades too light. Actually the photo makes it look pretty good. So perhaps it photographs better as a BB cream. I hoped that it would oxidize into a more human tone but irl I kind of look like an Asian aunty wearing geisha foundation. Sad.

Back to Sephora it goes. At least it smells nice.

Pros: packaging, nice herbal ingredients, pleasant floral scent.

Cons: expensive, bad pale gray color for medium complexions, muy expensive.