This story is brought to you by Revlon.

I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but there’s a gold rush in the drugstore foundation category. All the drugstore brands are trying to become The Chosen One for bases; everybody is trying to outdo each other when it comes to quality, shade range (hurrah for inclusivity), packaging, and value. Revlon’s new Candid line holds no punches in this regard. They’ve recently come out with 31 shades from light to very deep - their most comprehensive selection yet - of which 12 are available here in the Philippines. It comes in cute millennial pink packaging to boot!

Let’s take a look at the Candid line and see what I think about this intriguing collection.

The Revlon Candid Natural Finish Anti-Pollution Foundation (P675 for 22ml) is formulated to be a daily foundation that not only provides flawless, moisturizing coverage, but also Vitamin E as its anti-pollution ingredient. It is also said to protect against blue light, which comes from the digital devices that we put in front of our faces everyday. So how does it perform? Here’s a quick rundown!

What I like about this foundation:

It provides surprisingly good coverage with a natural satin finish. I’d say it offers medium coverage, but it can be layered to achieve medium-full coverage. Your skin will still look like skin with this one.
It’s easy to blend with a damp sponge for an even more natural finish but you can go with a dense brush if you’re looking for fuller coverage in one layer. I prefer the sponge!
This has a thick, creamy texture but a small amount goes a long way. I find two pumps to be more than enough for my face.
Staying power is pretty good at eight hours before it starts to fade gracefully. This foundation is supposed to be moisturizing but I can’t see how that is; it sets quite solidly and works well with my oily-combination skin! It takes me three hours to work up a shine with this foundation + a bit of powder. So yes if you’re oily-combi or oily throughout, I think you’ll find this reliable on an average day.
There are 12 shades available in the PH and 31 available in total. We get 500, which is the darkest, and you can see in the swatch how deep that goes. I found a good match with 300 Dune for my warm medium skin.
I like the tube with pump packaging because that makes it convenient to bring in a makeup kit.
The price is right. It’s P675 for 22ml (a bit less than average in terms of foundation amount) but Revlon has always been on the higher price tier of drugstore brands.

A word of caution:

So I like that there’s a wide shade selection, right, but I must caution you that the shades have different undertones. It’s not a straight up light to dark situation; some shades will have a beige pink undertone, some will be beige yellow, some will be olive-neutral. The shades also settle into a darker tone than what you get out of the tube. So my advice here is to swatch shades on your bare face, blend it out, then walk around for a bit to see how it settles in (around 15 minutes).

Verdict and recommendations

The Revlon Natural Finish Anti-Pollution Foundation is a great everyday foundation for those with normal to oily skin. It looks great when applied and stays on for a good amount of time; it doesn’t require a lot of retouching. It even looks better as it wears on during the day! You just need to be careful about finding your shade but once you’re there, you’ll find that you’ll enjoy having the Candid foundation around!

Next we have the Revlon Candid Antioxidant Concealer (P575 for10ml). This concealer has eight shades available in the Philippines (18 globally), with one being touted as a universal shade - that’s 002 Banana. It has a doe foot applicator with a wide tip to mimic a fingertip and I find that it carries just the right amount of product from the tube to the skin.

Same as the foundation, the concealer deepens a tiny bit as you blend it out, so you have to make sure that you blend out your swatch before deciding on a shade. I’ve found a good match in 030 Light Medium.

I would recommend this concealer formula more for the under eyes than for blemishes because the coverage is just medium for me. You know me, I love full coverage concealer for spot concealing! But for me this is on under eye duty. It doesn’t crease and blends out beautifully.

While I found the skin tone shades underwhelming, the real winner here is the 002 Banana concealer. THIS IS BOMB for brightening the under eyes! The coverage is juuuust right for color correcting and the bright yellow undertone really lifts up the dark areas. It can look scary light at first but it blends out seamlessly on light to medium skin tones. If you have a deeper skin tone than I do, layer your skin tone concealer shade on top of Banana to finish the color correction. Try this out for your eye baggage!

And here we have the Revlon Candid Anti-Pollution Setting Powder (P975 for 15 grams) which comes in three shades - Translucent, Medium, and Deep. I wasn’t sure how I felt about this at first because I find that the Medium shade is almost…full coverage but I realized that I’ve just been applying way too much of it! This is the kind of powder where a very small amount goes a long way, otherwise, your face will look quite flat and overly matte (see my photo above!). It’s pricey at P975 but you do get 15 grams and the sifter itself has a neat cover that snaps on so that it doesn’t get messy when it’s just capped in your bag.

This is a great powder for oil control IMHO and also ideal for baking. When used correctly, it achieves the right balance between a matte, utterly poreless finish and allowing skin to peek through. Just remember to learn from my mistakes and use only a small amount ha! In any case you can also spray some hydrating mist on top to lessen the powdery look if you do happen to apply too much.

I love this sifter cover mechanism so much!

Overall, I am pleased with the Revlon Candid line and would recommend it to pretty much anyone looking for a good everyday long-wearing yet natural base. Let me know what you think, as always!

Product photography by Nicole Quindara