MAKEUP | Urban Decay Face Bond Foundation #FoundationFriday

Gifted by This is Butterly. Affiliate links.

It has been six months since my last foundation review and I have to say that in my early 40s, the only makeup I seem to be consistently wanting to try is foundation because it feels like an extension of my skincare routine. If anything, better skin means I can get away with a lower coverage and maintenance foundation! Last year, I was finally chosen for a makeup product review through Butterly (I've found that once I hit my mid-30s, the makeup campaigns became far and few between) for the Urban Decay Face Bond Foundation.

I feel like it had been awhile since Urban Decay had released a foundation and the last foundation I tried from the brand was the All Nighter which was like face paint, I swear! It is still to this day one of the highest coverage foundations I have ever applied to my face and while it really made my skin look flawless, it is not a level of coverage I typically feel comfortable wearing especially now that I am older. 

Face Bond is meant to be an all-in-one serum, blurring, self-setting foundation with medium, lightweight coverage leaving skin with a matte and natural finish. This is in stark contrast to the All Nighter Foundation for sure! 

It is intended for all skin types and contains 3% niacinamide to slowly improve skin texture with prolonged use (they say after 4 weeks). I don't really know how effective skincare ingredients are in foundation, but there is niacinamide in the top half of the ingredients list and it obviously doesn't hurt to have this in the formulation. 

What I found the most interesting about this foundation was the "self-setting" aspect as it dries down to a power-like finish that is waterproof, sweat-resistant and transferproof! I always use powder to set any liquid foundation because I don't like ANY sticky or tacky feeling on my skin during the day. 

Check out the nozzle! I know some people don't like it, but I love a precision nozzle like this as I have had clothing mishaps with pumps and dropper tubes in the past. Foundation does NOT come out of clothing easily and it always seems to happen when I am wearing white/beige! I generally liked how compact the packaging was as it fit nicely into my acrylic divider drawers.

I'm kind of glad I waited until now to do a full review because initially, I thought that this was all I would be reaching for, but now that I have had some time to sit with my thoughts and try the foundation a few times, I have come to realize that I actually find this TOO drying at times. While I used it plenty in the summer, I haven't since then.

In the above photo, I am wearing the foundation alone in shade 14 Golden Medium and you can see that it did an OK job of covering up the redness around my nose. What's nice is that there wasn't a lot of breakdown at the end of the day with this formula.

The claims of 24 hour wear are never things I fully test out because that's not my life and if a foundation can make it through a 12 hour day with no problems, I am happy! I wouldn't say the finish was completely flawless at the end of the work day, but I definitely felt like there was a certain level of oil control.

And this is the foundation with blush so it is quite matte in finish and is still nice, but not necessarily a finish I want my skin to have all the time.

Final verdict: This is my summer foundation where everything feels sticky. It's fast and simple to blend and not needing setting powder is a huge plus! I have normal/dry skin so one thing I do have to make sure of is that my dry patches are properly hydrated or this foundation does cling especially around the nose. Other than that, I will be switching to this foundation once we start to get up to the 20s, but for now I will stick to my liquids and/or thicker formulation stick foundations!

You can find the Urban Decay Face Bond Foundation at Sephora.