Review: Catrice Nude Illusion and Even Skin Tone Foundations

The review of Catrice Even Skin Tone foundation was very highly requested, and I know a lot of you were waiting for it, but I have a habit that I test a foundation at least one month, wearing it few times a week, before I can posts a proper review. The second reason I bring this review so late is that I had to lose some tan, because I bought shade 010, which is bright, but at the time I got it I was quite dark and it was too bright for me. Now I’ve became a bit paler and the shade adjusts to my skin tone better, so it’s more reliable for me to write the review. The reason I bought shade 010 is because I want to use this foundation during winter as well. But before I review Even Skin Tone foundation, I want to talk about Catrice Nude Illusion foundation. Many has been said about this foundation on other blogs and on mine as well, but I noticed that Nude Illusion and Even Skin Tone foundation have a lot of similarities and joined review is more than appropriate. 

Catrice Nude Illusion 01 Nude Ivory

What Catrice says about this foundation: Light, melting foundation with soft-focus effect and just the right amount of mattifying coverage. For a flawless finish that looks and feel perfectly natural. With protective UVA/UVB filters. Moisturizing. Longlasting. Dermatologically tested. 

Packaging:Catrice Nude Illusion has a glass bottle with a pump that’s easy to work with. With it you can easily dosage the amount of product you want. I usually use two to three pumps of foundation, it depends from the coverage I want. The bottle contains 30 ml.

Shade: Nude Ivory is the lightest shade in the range. It’s very bright and it has a neutral undertone. During the winter it does match my skin tone nicely, maybe it’s just a tiny bit too dark. It matches my skin the best during the spring, when I get a bit of tan.

Texture and finish: I really love the formula of this foundation. It has a bit thicker formula, but it applies and blends really nicely (with a sponge or a brush). I have a feeling that it adjusts to my skin really nicely, and it gives it a healthy matte look. If I don’t set it with powder, my skin gets shiny after few hours despite my normal skin. But otherwise it really looks natural on my skin. When I’m wearing it (or even Even Skin Tone foundation) people think I don’t wear any foundation. 

Coverage: The coverage is medium, but it can be upgraded. Beside the redness on some parts I don’t have huge problems with my skin, so two pumps are enough to cover up my whole face, and sometimes I use the third pump around my nose and on my cheeks, where the foundations tends to fade away the fastest. This foundation evens out the skin perfectly and it gives me a flawless natural look. I wouldn’t say it’s moisturizing, but it doesn’t feel drying on the skin, it’s actually pretty lightweight and most of the time I have a feeling like I’m not wearing anything. It’s one of those foundations that won’t emphasize dry patches on your skin.

Scent: If you smell the foundation in the bottle it has a bit strange artificial scent, but when applying it on face I don’t smell anything. I hate nothing more than strong scented foundations.

Staying power: The foundations around 8 hours on my skin, if I set it with powder, but then it starts to fade away slowly.

Catrice Even Skin Tone Beautifying foundation 010 Even Vanilla

What Catrice says about this foundation: The longlasting and caring foundation creates evidentially a visibly more even skin tone. It instantly covers dark spots, imperfections and redness and reveals a radiant matt finish. After 8 weeks already, it visibly brightens dark spots – clinically proven. For a more beautiful and healthy looking radiant skin. SPF 25.

Packaging: Catrice really likes to launch their foundations in a glass bottle and I highly appreciate that. Many bloggers have said that Even Skin Tone has the same packaging as Photo Finish foundation, which is discontinued, and I guess Catrice just reformulated the foundation and kept the packaging (but I haven’t tried Photo Finish foundation, so these are just my speculations). The pump is very similar to Nude Illusion pump, and as that one this one also enables easy dosage with the needed amount of product. The bottle contains 30 ml of product. 

Shade: Catrice made a step further and created a very light shade 005 Even Ivory that would probably match many fair girls, but I personally decided for 010 Even Vanilla, because in the store I swatched both shades together and they seemed very close by the lightness, but 005 had a pink undertone, which does not match my skin at all. I can work with neutral or yellow foundations, but not with pink. Even Vanilla has a slight yellow undertone, but what surprised me the most is that when I put it on one half of my face and Nude Illusion on other half, it adapted to my skin tone and after some time both foundations started to looks the same. In the end you can see the photo that proves that.

Texture and finish: Even Skin Tone has even thicker and creamier texture than Nude Illusion. It doesn’t apply as smooth as Nude Illusion, but it blends out easy anyway. It doesn’t give a complete matte finish look to the skin, so I would agree with the description which says that it gives a radiant look to the skin. But of course, when I compared it side by side with Nude Illusion on my face, the difference in finish was barely visible. What I did notice in comparison to Nude Illusion is that Even Skin Tone feels more drying to the touch and that it does emphasize dry parts a bit. Nothing too noticeable from far, but that might be bothering for some people. 

Coverage: Its coverage is medium, but the foundation can be layered. Although it says on the packaging that it covers dark spots, imperfections and redness instantly, I wouldn’t say it covers them completely. Maybe it covers the redness on my cheeks, but definitely not dark spots. For example, my under eye circles are not that dark, but I still need a concealer to cover them up, because I can still see them through foundation.

Scent: I don’t know what Catrice was thinking when they made a strongly scented foundation, because I really hate that. The scent is not noticeable only when you smell the bottle up close, but also when you’re applying foundation on your face. After application I don’t smell it anymore, but it’s quite annoying during the application, especially because it’s a strange sweet scent I’m not a fan of.

Staying power: This foundation has similar staying power as Nude Illusion. If I don’t set it with powder, it does fade away faster on my cheek area than Nude Illusion (the redness starts to peek through – I have a very strong red colour of my cheeks), but mattified it stays on my skin for around 8 hours. 

Conclusion: I do like both foundations, especially because they work very similar on my normal skin with few minimal differences, but my personal choice for repurchase would be Nude Illusion. It’s not the scent, which bothers me by Even Skin Tone (I can forgive it that because it’s a good drugstore foundation), but I just think that Nude Illusion adjusts better to my skin and I prefer the flawless and healthy look it’s giving me. From a far nobody could notice I’m wearing two foundations when I put them side by side on my face, and someone who’s not a cosmetics fan would definitely say it’s the same foundation if (s)he would look closer, but I did notice the difference when I looked closer and I liked the look of Nude Illusion foundation on my skin better. I added a photo where I have both foundations on, but it's very hard to capture on photo what I'm talking about. It's something I notice in person that convinces me which foundation I like better.

Price: Both foundation cost 7,69 € (I don’t know why I had in mind that one is cheaper). You can get them in drugstores that sell Catrice.

Check swatches of both foundations side by side here.

Have you tried any of these foundation? What do you think about them? Thank you for reading!

Share this post