Yes, Making And Wearing My Own Custom-Made Foundation Was As Fancy As It Sounds

Here's what our French lifestyle editor loved about the brand's Le Teint Particulier foundation ~experience~.

Note: BuzzFeed France was invited by Lancôme to test out the Le Teint Particulier line of custom foundation. Here's how it went:

Hi, I'm Jennifer. I'm in charge of the lifestyle section at BuzzFeed France, and I love makeup.

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When it comes to my daily routine, I mostly use concealer to cover my dark circles and small imperfections. I wear foundation only very rarely. Usually, I am "lucky" enough to find my shade, but this isn't always the case for everybody, especially for darker skin tones. For those with very dark skin, finding your exact shade becomes almost impossible.

Recently, Rihanna's makeup brand Fenty Beauty created quite a stir by releasing a foundation with 40 shades — an amazing selection, but still not enough to cover all the possible skin combos out there.

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Your foundation is bound to always be a little bit too dark, or too light. This is why many people choose to mix two colors to get a perfect match.

But, a few weeks ago, I discovered Le Teint Particulier, Lancôme's foundation that's custom-made according to your skin tone and attributes. They've put together a pretty incredible method that allows you to find your exact shade — out of 72,000 shades possible shades — for $88.

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When I first heard about it, I knew I HAD to try it out — and I even made a video documenting the whole in-store process (link in French).

So, here's what the process entails: First, the beauty consultant scans your skin to find your exact shade.

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Only smooth skin is scanned to make sure that small imperfections, such as dark spots and pigmentation, do not skew the results.

Next, you get to choose the coverage and hydration levels you need for your foundation.

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Then, this fancy machine takes care of the rest:

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This is where the magic happens — you get to watch all of the colors used in your foundation drip into the bottle.

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It was so weird to watch all kinds of pigments — red, white, brown, yellow, white — drip into the bottle. My beauty consultant told me that some foundations will even use green, since skin can sometimes have green undertones.

After that, the foundation is mixed and then lets you test it on your skin — I was so impressed> It was a perfect match!

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When I first saw the foundation on the makeup brush, I thought it looked too dark, but when applied to my skin, it blended perfectly to my skin tone.

Finally, when you are satisfied with the mix, you get to print your name on the foundation bottle. The machine prints a tag that also includes foundation's color number, so you can easily re-purchase the same shade without having to redo the whole process.

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Then, you get to take your fancy custom-made foundation home!

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After using the foundation for two months, I can conclusively say that I am overall satisfied with the foundation. It applies nicely, and the finish is natural. It doesn't feel like you are wearing a mask. And, you can use it as concealer on your dark circles, and it will blend well with your bare skin.

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The only problem is the coverage. Next time I think I'll pick a fuller coverage, to really cover my imperfections without having to use a lot of product. But I liked that the product is luminous and not greasy — that's a real plus.

Of course, the price isn't cheap — but when you take into account the fact that some people have to mix two shades of foundation to get their exact skin shade, it ends up being just as expensive (high-end brand foundations can be $40-100 for a bottle). That's not cheap, either, and what you get for Le Teint Particulier is something that meets your exact needs and preferences, and most of all, fits your skin tone perfectly. I think it's especially worth it for people with very dark skin who have few options when it comes to foundation shades.

I'm definitely keeping mine for now — and I'm planning on getting two custom foundations total: one for winter when my skin is lighter, and another for summer when I am tanned. Having a custom foundation feels as fancy as it sounds, as if I'm one in a million — or, I guess, one in 72,000!

Click here for the full video (video in French):

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This post was translated from French.