The Ordinary Colours Foundation Review & Shade Guide - First Impressions

Find my full review and before and after photos of Colours Coverage foundation here!

I took a little visit to the Deciem store at Lamb Street, Spitalfields, London today where they’re previewing the new foundation. It was a very exciting day for me as a giant The Ordinary fan. I went to suss out The Ordinary’s new range of foundation called Colours. I did some searching and swatching, so I thought I’d bring you my first impressions as I’m rather excited and I can’t wait until they’ve actually been released.

I was informed that colours would be released to the public April 4th, which isn’t long. But apparently you probably won’t get your hands on them for a while- there’s a long list of pre orders.

The Ordinary official word-

Sounds great to me!

They are launching two formulas-

• The Ordinary Colours Serum Foundation £5.70– Serum is a lightweight, low viscosity, light to medium coverage foundation. It comes in a glass dropper bottle (the finished product will be provided with a pump) and has a fluid consistency and good pigmentation. It gives a sheer light natural dewy base.

  

• The Ordinary Colours Coverage Foundation £5.90– comes in a screw topped glass bottle (same as Serum- there’ll be a pump dispenser) , it has a thicker, non oily, cream consistency and more pigment than Serum and gives more coverage. The finish is skin-like satin.

Both the foundations have SPF 15, are well pigmented and promised good lasting ability. (I was only allowed to have a little swatch about in the Deciem store, they wouldn’t let me do a whole face of makeup with colours so I couldn’t properly assess it’s abilities).

The Ordinary Colours Serum Foundation is more suited to dry/normal skin or those who need less coverage or like a natural light base. The Ordinary Colours Coverage Foundation being more suitable to those who need more concealment. I have a bit of pigmentation and blemishes so I’m going to go for Coverage. 

The Ordinary Colours Foundation- Picking a Shade

One good thing about The Ordinary Colours Foundation is the shade range. There will be 22 shades of Serum and Coverage. They are categorised according to depth- from Very Fair to Deep, and undertones- Yellow, Neutral, Pink, Golden and Red. This makes it much easier to select a shade, especially when you’re buying online.

I swatched 1.0 Neutral in Serum , 2.0 Neutral and 2.0 Pink in Coverage.

Safe to say that the shades lean yellow, so if you are neutral- go pink. I have fair/ neutral skin, NW20 in Mac, Ecru in Estée Lauder and the Light/Medium 2.0 pink was the best match for me. As you can see by the swatch it isn’t as pink as you would expect. Here is a close up of my skin for comparison with your own skin, so you can get get an idea for your own shade, it’s always tricky colour matching foundation shades online.

The 1.0 Very Fair tones were very light and would suit those with extremely pale skin, say NW10 in Mac. A couple of the shades have gold and silver highlights, for a glowy shimmer. So you choose your skin depth first- i.e. How pale/dark you are, then select your undertone. I did a post on choosing your foundation shade, this might help.

This is all the information I was able to glean on my investigative mission to the Deciem store. Both Serum and Coverage look very promising and affordable. The shade range alone is a winner. I hope this gives some advance intel for when it comes to The Ordinary Colours Foundations proper release. I’ll be back with more info as soon as I have it.

The Ordinary Colours Foundation Serum and Coverage are available from The Ordinary from the 4th April