Has anyone stopped wearing foundation after wearing it all the time? Did your skin improve?

[BonfireOfKleenex]

I'm so sick of my thread-veiny, blotchy, zitty skin. I wear foundation and concealer, and am now wondering whether:

a) this actually makes me look older (close up, I have a bit of a pancake old lady look)
b) it's making my skin worse

As I'm currently schlepping around in my dressing gown sans make-up, I happened to pass a mirror and think that although the redness is more apparent, I do somehow look a bit younger.

So am now considering ditching the foundation for a bit. Does anyone have any naked-faced tales of joy to share?

I just use bronzer. Foundation gives me a 'flat' appearance and doesn't suit my Celtic skin colour (freckles). Bare face is too pale and frightening

I do use under eye concealer though. Lipgloss / lippy and eye pencil ( and mascara sometimes)

Aha that is interesting Warren (sorry to call you Warren btw). Just the kind of bare faced tale I was hoping for. I am already spending the money I will save on buying expensive foundation.

I'm quite Celtic and freckly too Annie, though I can't do bronzer as it looks v unnatural and brick-dusty on me. Although my base skin-colour is very pale, at the moment the blotches and zits help to provide a bit of contrast [buhmm] I think I will stick with eye-make up, as I do like a bit of eye pencil and mascara.

I have found that anything but the very best foundation can be really aging on me, unless I spend abouty half an hour with a close up mirror, blending and concealing all over the place.

Now, when I DO make the effort, it looks lovely, but mostly I can't be arsed, and will settle for slightly less lovely and MUCH quicker.

So I use a cheek stain, which brightens my face without me really having to fuss too much.

I used to wear foundation every day, but I had a stressful few weeks about a year ago when I didn't have time/just forgot to wear foundation and I thought I looked so much better.

So I don't wear it after that, apart from on special occasions. Although some days I think I just need something on my face so I wear Garnier's BB cream which is a lot lighter than foundation but still makes you look a bit more polished iykwim

How about trying a primer under your foundation?

I always wore foundation every day before having dc when at work, just made me feel more polished/profesional. I now only use very light coverage, used to use chanel until I heard about a No 7 one which really is very very similar and cheap as chips when they ahve the fiver off voucher.

I tend to use either nothing when I'm not working as now part time but being a big walker worry about the increasing number of ruddyness to my cheeks (always have spf ijn face cream) so have been using the Garnier BB cream. Lots of people on ehre find it makes them look a funny colour, I have the light shade and it s perfect for me, very very natural but better than just tinted moistoriser. I wear lipstick or gloss, mascara, a little eyeshadow and liner.

I bought the No 7 primer following a thread on here a few weeks ago and when I first used it under foundation it really was astonishing, made me look very natural and fresh faced. I use it every day now, sometimes rather than the bb cream.

If someone had said to me 5 years ago I would often go out without foundation I would have thought they were mad but I really do prefer it now. Plus not working in grimy Bristol city centre makes my skin look better I am sure!

hmm - am definitely going to give it a go. The thing is my skin always looks redder and blotchier straight after showering or face washing in the morning, so going out looking like that has always been unthinkable. Maybe I just need to give it a chance to calm down.

Another of my delightful skin annoyances is large pores, so I always seem to end up looking a bit polka dotted with whatever I have used on top of them.

I have used primer CarrieLou (Mac and Smashbox) and although they do feel smooth and lovely, I can't see that they make all that much difference to my appearance. Maybe I'm not doing it right.

Is the BB stuff like tinted moisturiser?

Yes, and yes. It feels odd to wear makeup now after so long without it; stopped bothering a few years ago, apart from concealer and lipstick My skin is better.