[twitter-follow screen_name=’NoireTropicalB’]

NoireTropicalBeauty SleekMakeup BBcream Dark review

Sleek MakeUp’s Be Beautiful Blemish Balm

BB creams which stands for beauty balms or blemish balms have been all the rage in Asia for years and more recently made their way West. Now you can pretty much find a BB cream from most major beauty brands. Both drugstore level and from more high end brands.

Before I dig deep into this review, let me just explain what a BB cream is. You know sometimes you just want to wear something really light, minimal effort that makes your skin look fresh and put together..… well that would be a job for a BB cream. It’s basically a tinted moisturizer (which is a really sheer, lightweight foundation, with minimum pigment) that’s been spiced up. They usually have additional properties like a primer, SPF protection and antioxidants to help heal skin. I rarely wear foundation. Ninety-nine percent of the time if you meet me, I’m just wearing some regular moisturizer, but sometimes I want to even out my skintone for a special event, especially if I am going to be photographed. My biggest issue with BB creams is that still, in 2013, many companies won’t bring out a decent range of colours. Usually they come in fair and light. Occasionally they will include a medium.

Back to Sleek. This brand is sold out of the UK in drugstores like Superdrug and online. So for Christmas, I got my brother to bring me a few items so I could finally get my hands on them without having to order through their website. Yay! Sleek MakeUP has gained a really great reputation for being an inexpensive brand that has high quality, pigmented products.

This BB cream touts many properties. It could be used a tinted moisturizer and it contains an SPF of 15. It could also be used as a primer under a foundation or a concealer. It also has multi-vitamins, anti- aging factors and protein peptides to aid in skin refreshment. Vitamins C and E also added to help brighten and firm the skin as well as help protects the skin from the damaging effects of UV radiation. Finally it contain jojoba oil which moisturizes the skin.

Bea Beautiful Blemish Balm comes in seven…seven shades!! I can’t think of too many brands that has such a shade range. Since BB creams have just a little bit of pigment every one can find a shade that is pretty close to their skintone. This is a huge plus for me! Here are the shades that they come in:

Fair, Light, Light 01, Light 02, Medium, Medium 01, Dark

And one thing that I love about the Sleek website, is that they have swatches of all products on Fair, Medium and Dark skin so you get a decent estimate of what something will look like!

I (or my brother) picked up the deepest shade Dark.

Dark

It is a little bit more pigmented and creamy than some of the other tinted moisturizers that I have tested. This particular colour runs slightly more red than neutral.

Completely blended in!

I have applied a thin layer using both my fingers and using a damp non-latex sponge. I then added another layer to the areas that I have issues with hyperpigmentation. I would say that this gives a light coverage as opposed to sheer coverage but it still felt pretty weightless on my skin. The finish is quite dewy, which I love, but if you have oily skin, I would add a mattifying primer before hand and add a setting powder afterwards. This gave me the coverage that I needed and I looked fresh after wearing it all day. I also have no (yet) had a negative reaction to the SPF, which is a plus. This colour would work fine on really ebony skin if one sticks to one layer.

Sleek products are available online on their website and they do ship internationally. They can also be found at select retailers for about US$11.50

Overall grade: A+

If you are a woman of colour, especially medium to dark skintones, this is a must try, especially in warmer weather, just for the fact that they have a wide colour range.