Review: Josie Maran Argan Matchmaker Serum Foundation in Light/Medium

This is such a fun foundation! It is the first time I have used a self-adjusting formula and it is really awesome.

You can't really tell from the pictures, but it comes in a deep brown glass bottle with a pump top.

Out of the bottle it is an off white color with these little "grains"

Once you rub it into the skin, the "grains" change the color of the foundation and make it an almost perfect match for your skin tone.  Below you can see a part of my hand that is a bit more yellow toned than the rest, that is where the foundation is.

Bare skinned (dark circles, acne scars and all. Eek!)

With foundation applied with fingertips

Initial Thoughts: This does a pretty good job of matching my skin tone.  It is a bit more yellow than my skin tone, but using a translucent powder to set the foundation makes it a pretty close match.  It is not so yellow that it makes my face look off.  It does a good job of covering most of my flaws, I would rate this as a medium to full coverage foundation.  It doesn't cover all  of my dark circles, but really...nothing much does so that is to be expected.  It does have a strong scent that takes a few minutes to fully fade away.  The first time I used this foundation I was shocked by the scent.  I have never used an argan oil product before, so maybe the scent is just what argan oil smells like.  

Overall Thoughts: Without primer I can wear this foundation (with setting powder) until about noon before I need to blot.  This is pretty normal for my oily skin so I am very happy with that.  I have tried it with a few different powders and it plays nice with all of them.  I tried applying this foundation with a brush and found it comes out much better when I use my fingers to apply.  It also gunked up my brush after just one use, not sure if this is from the argan oil.  The one thing I wish this foundation had was SPF.  My skin is oily and I prefer to use foundation with SPF in it so I don't have to wear a separate sun screen.  This is also a perfect foundation if your skin changes slightly in color through the seasons.  I am NOT an outdoor person, so this works well for my pale summer skin as it turns into super pale during winter.  Not sure if this would work year round for those of you who have a more drastic color change. Overall, I would repurchase if it had SPF, but since it doesn't I will be looking around for a better option with SPF.