Show Some Skin: Glossier Perfecting Skin Tint in Light Review + Swatches

When Emily the Super Intern from “The Hills” (aka Emily Weiss of mega-celeb-worship/envy site Into the Gloss) unveiled Glossier, I was cautiously curious. This could be awesome or this could be mediocrity masked by marketing, I thought.

Glossier developed a limited number of products, which are actually not crazily priced. I have just one of them–the Perfecting Skin Tint in Light ($26 for 1 oz.)–because I wasn’t convinced that the other products were huge advances in the beauty world.

The tint is a very thin, runny formula.  The shade Light is a warm peachy beige about the same depth as MAC NC20, but the sheerness should allow a wide range of fair to light skintones to wear this.

Additional tips from one of Glossier’s promo emails:

• “blend in upward strokes until you’re all even”
• “12 drops is a good amount to get even coverage over the entire face”
• “mixing [concealer] with a few drops of the tint will make [the concealer] easier to blend and adapt to skin.”

The main appeal–emphasized by Glossier–is that the tint is “breathable, ultra thin” and won’t hide “freckles, spackle your pores, or erase any other evidence that you are, in fact, a real human being.” It also describes the three shades as “super sheer, adaptable.”

The product’s main appeal, however, is also its main limiting factor. As someone whose skin shows plenty of “evidence of being a real human being,” I’ve come to realize that the Perfecting Skin Tint is very much an aspirational product.

Much like that Dolce & Gabbana corset dress you bought even though you’d have to dislocate a rib to fit into it or that never-opened fitness app you refuse to delete from your phone–ahem, talking hypothetically of course–the Perfecting Skin Tint is the type of product that one wishes one could just slap on and be done because one is a model or socialite.

Just look at the model photos and GIF demo on the Glossier product page. Those women are the embodiment of #iwokeuplikethis.  And then there’s me:

The tint doesn’t cover anything. It very slightly diffuses some redness and adds a dewy, smooth texture to the skin. But it does nothing for darkness under the eyes or spots and doesn’t add enough color to erase the overall zombified look. Its pore-camouflaging abilities are worse than the most basic silicone primer’s. There’s also some pilling since I wore this on top of moisturizer and sunscreen. The instructions to just rub in like a moisturizer maximize the potential for pilling.

More layers can be applied without caking, but the coverage isn’t buildable. It remains S-H-E-E-R! I’ve tried adding a few drops of the Cover FX Custom Cover Drops in G20 for added coverage, but that didn’t do much for coverage and worsened the best part about the tint: the texture. (Those drops are a huge fail in general.)

The tint is best likened to a liquid Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powder–except less useful and more short-lived, wearing away after a few hours. It basically adds a dewy texture and that’s it. (You can sort of see a sheen on the cheek with the tint.) If you’re not comfortable with showing that much skin, skip this!

I’m so down on this product that I’ve had it for 10 months and have just now bothered to put up a review.  I finally gave the whole bottle away to my friend, cat stickers and all.

Pros: Sheer formula does not cake and adds a dewy sheen to skin.
Cons: The no-makeup look needn’t literally look like no makeup; give me some coverage. Dewiness all over can read as an oily or a round face. Disappears in a few hours.