L'Oreal Infallible Sculpt Contouring Base Review

Without a doubt, the biggest beauty trend of the last few years has been contouring. Most brands have released their own contour kits and brushes, but L'Oreal have taken the contouring trend to a new extreme - they have released a contouring base. Essentially, their contouring base is a foundation. The base is designed to work in co-ordination with the new L'Oreal Infallible Sculpt collection that features a sculpting kit, as well as a sculpting blush. I didn't actually purchase their contour kit or blush as my contouring collection is completely out of hand at this stage, but I was quite intrigued by this base. I didn't quite understand what made it different from using a regular foundation before contouring. So how did I get on?

This is a lovely lightweight, light coverage foundation that applies onto the skin really smoothly. I just used a flat foundation brush from MAC, and I was happy with the coverage. I don't tend to go for light coverage foundations, but this is great because it's buildable, so you can add a little extra coverage where necessary. After application, my skin looked great - the foundation dries to a satin finish. I continued my makeup routine as normal, and when it came to my contouring routine, I was intrigued to see if it would be different. To be honest, I don't quite know what I was expecting to happen - perhaps I would just naturally turn into Kim Kardashian because I used a contouring base? Well, no, not really...

My contour looked the same as it always does - I tried it with multiple contouring powders, and using the contouring base really didn't change the way the products applied. Despite this, the contouring base wore really nicely throughout the day, with minimal shine. It lasted a good eight hours on the skin before looking remotely shiny, so that's always a bonus.

Put simply, I think that the idea of a contouring base is a complete gimmick to tap into the contouring hype. This is a great foundation, I'd definitely recommend it, but it's certainly not what I would call a contouring essential!

My only issue with this product is the shade range - L'Oreal claim that this has Smart Pigments that adapt to your skin tone, so the foundation only comes in two shades - Light and Medium/Dark. I found the Light shade was definitely too dark for my pale skin, so improving the shade range would be great.

If you're on the hunt for a new drugstore foundation, this is a great pick, however not specifically to use for contouring! The L'Oreal Infallible Sculpt range is on stands now, and this foundation will set you back €13.49.