The Ultra-Affordable Foundation You Need to Try

Dealing with redness and dryness at the same time means finding a good foundation is doubly challenging. On the one hand, I need coverage that can even out my skin tone and hide away red patches, but on the other hand, I need a formula that won’t make me appear flaky and dehydrated.

Foundations aren’t cheap, either. And even if the place you’re buying from has a great return policy, in the age of COVID-19, it can feel like a hassle to go into the store or the post office to give an item back.

So when I stumbled upon The Ordinary’s Coverage Foundation, generously priced at $6.90, my jaw dropped! The Ordinary is a brand I have trusted and loved for a while now, and I had no idea they had come out with a foundation, and no doubt that it’d be a solid product. (The Ordinary also offers a serum foundation that is designed for lighter coverage, in case that’s what you’re looking for, but I won’t be touching on that here.)

The Ordinary markets this product as a “high-spreadability pigment suspension system with high coverage”. The pigments in the formula “[allow] pigments to look natural on the skin, resist collecting within fine lines and stay on for longer.” Essentially, you get a semi-matte, natural finish without compromising on full coverage.

I have three different shades from them (one for summer when my skin tans from being out in the sun, two for mixing for the rest of the year), and I can say that I was immediately impressed with the coverage. A little pump of this creamy foundation goes an extremely long way. The redness on my cheeks was covered in an instant, and by the end of application, my skin tone looked extremely even.

The finish is indeed semi-matte; my skin looks hydrated but not shiny. Even after around three to four hours of wear, the coverage is still mostly there (though not completely), and the product is hardly settling in dry patches or fine lines.

All in all, I think this foundation is really worth trying. You can’t beat the price, and for folks like me who want a lot of coverage but still want to make sure their skin looks natural, this product promises just that. The Coverage Foundation combines affordability and quality, and I’ll be using it for a long time to come!