Happy Tuesday, everyone! Today, I have an all new review for your reading pleasure. That of course being the Rare Beauty True To Myself Longwear Foundation. To say that this has been a highly anticipated review would be an understatement. My DM’s basically blew up when I mentioned I had this in my stash. And remembering the polarising opinion many people had about Rare Beauty’s last foundation launch, well, let’s just say I was excited to put this through it’s paces. I’ve spent the last few weeks using it behind the scenes. And I have so many thoughts. So, let’s get into them!
RARE BEAUTY TRUE TO MYSELF NATURAL MATTE LONGWEAR FOUNDATION – $67.00 – sephora.com.au
*48 Shades Available*
We’ll begin as always with the packaging. The True To Myself Foundation is housed in a stout, frosted acrylic bottle. Round in the front, flat at the back, with the gold detail that is on most Rare Beauty packaging. The top of the bottle is ivory beige and takes up the upper third of the bottle. It feels very lightweight, but still well made. The True To Myself Foundation is vegan, cruelty free, and contains 30ml of product.
One of the big complaints for Rare Beauty’s previous foundation launch was that it used a doe foot as opposed to a pump to dispense the product. The True To Myself Foundation does indeed have a pump this time. And it’s one of the better pumps that I’ve seen for a foundation. The button to press is placed at the top of the bottle and is quite large and easy to press no matter your strength level. Even better, at the back of the bottle, there is a locking mechanism to help prevent product leaking out. The locking mechanism is very easy to use. Accessibility has always been a cornerstone of Rare Beauty’s brand. And it’s wonderful to see it here.
The True To Myself Foundation has 48 shades in the range. Which is the same as the Liquid Touch from Rare Beauty’s original range. One thing I did note between the two foundations is how much more expansive the shades for the True To Myself Foundation line. We have a solid mix of undertones (including olive and deep cool). The light shades go extremely light and the deep shades are even too dark for some of the South Sudanese creators I follow. I can tell a lot of thought went into this shade range and it’s fantastic to see.
As for me, I wear shade 9, described as being light with neutral undertones. Once again, I took a punt online to find my shade and it’s actually a pretty spot on match for me for this time of year. I fear it might be a tiny bit light when we head back into summer. But for right now, thumbs up for my online shade match skills!
Applying the True To Myself Foundation was something of an interesting experience. This is another foundation that has the ‘self priming, self setting’ claim attached to it. I learned pretty quickly that no, you do not need to prime with this one. I genuinely preferred it with just a moisturiser underneath (if you have drier skin, you might want to prime though). I do still set it, but we’ll talk about that in a second. As far as application goes, I liked it best applied with a brush (the Morphe M104 was my go to here). I thought with the thicker texture, that this foundation would blend out streaky. But in actuality, this blended out like a dream! I found that one pump did my whole face to my desired coverage. Rarely did I want to go in for more.
The True To Myself Foundation is described as being medium to full coverage with a natural matte finish. And I strongly agree on both counts. I mostly wore it at a medium coverage. Enough to cover my dark spot, but still enough freckle poking through to leave my skin still looking like skin. The finish is definitely matte. But a natural, comfortable matte that doesn’t feel heavy or drying on the skin. I mentioned before that even though this is a self setting formula, I do still set it very lightly with a pressed powder (the Tower 28 Get Set Powder is my go to). If you have drier skin, you could probably skip that step.
Which brings us once again to the wear test. And I won’t lie, y’all, this foundation kinda blew me away! Once this foundation was on my skin, it did not budge at all. I had no fading, no cracking, no sinking into pores. It doesn’t feel heavy. It doesn’t look cakey. It’s so flexible. I did notice that I was a little shiny after 9 hours of wear. But not in a way that was disrupting the makeup underneath. My other products worked very well on top of the foundation (except for the concealer, but we’ll discuss that another time).
All in all, I think we can call the Rare Beauty True To Myself Foundation a total winner and a sizable improvement on their last foundation launch. I strongly recommend you pick up a sample to try. Because I am obsessed with this one, I fear. Have you tried the Rare Beauty True To Myself Foundation? Let me know in the comments.
Cheers and love
Emily xo
I’m thinking about giving this a go simply for its reported longevity. I work in the city and have started wearing masks on public transport and need my foundation to look okay when I take the mask off.