glow blemish balm review (mixed my own shade; thoughts in comments!)

a while back, i saw so much promotional content about glow and their blemish balm. after they went viral, they explained that they couldn’t afford a large shade range due to it being a small company. in attempt to address that gap in the market, they decided to launch a trio with **brown** and **white** as shades, so that people can mix their own foundation.

whilst i wasn’t a fan of this idea, i’d heard really good reviews about the **glow bb cream**, so i decided to get the trio and mix brown/white in until i got my exact shade. it took me approx 13 attempts of swatching / reswatching over the course of several days (so that it would look good on all lighting) to get it right.

unfortunately because it took several days, by the time i got my proper shade (finally), i had alr mixed it into **#one** (which is intended for korean shade 21-23; i am shade 24-25 ish), so i could not swatch that anymore.

i would like to also note: **glow** intends for you to mix it on a day-to-day basis to your skin tone, but i genuinely had no energy for that. there’s no way i’m doing that every day LOL. so i just mixed it into the bottle, and eventually i got where i wanted to be.

in the swatches, i’ve attached my best match in foundation: the **romand nu zero cushion in shade 25**. it is actually ever so slightly orange on me.

**here’s a couple things i liked about it:**

* **it’s true: the bb cream is incredibly lightweight and feels just like a serum**. this is genuinely the lightest bb cream i’ve ever used (it’s like a water-like consistency), but not drying. one of my irks about the romand bare water cushion is that it clings to dry patches heavily due to its waterlike consistency. this **doesn’t do that**.
* semi-matte finish: it has that kbeauty semi-matte finish before powdering.
* **buildable**: despite its water-like consistency, it dries down and is buildable for extra coverage
* **doesn’t clog pores; genuinely feel like i could almost wear it to sleep**: it feels like you have nothing on ur skin. its not drying at all. it doesn’t require as much prep (i typically have to prep my skin with like 3 serums and creams) because of its serum-like properties.
* **multi-purpose**: because of its light to medium coverage, you can technically use **#white** as a natural highlight and **#brown** with **#one** as a natural contour.
* the **brown is not incredibly red or unnatural**, meaning that you can create a **true shade** that **isn’t incredibly orange**. kbeauty has a very big pitfall where shades from 25, 27 or beyond tend to be very orange.
* it’s easy to mix **#one** with white as well if ur lighter than 21.
* the fact that they made a **#brown** that is based off of actual brown models’ skin tone and not just arbitrarily adding darker shades that aren’t based on actual skin tones

here’s what i didn’t like about it:

* mixing the bb cream was an incredibly tedious process. it took me several days and attempts.
* people **who are warmer than me may find that the foundation doesn’t match**.
* i would say that the shade i ended up getting is a little on the cooler side than i’d like, but i am a pretty traditional warm autumn mute, so this makes me optimistic that cool-tone girlies in shade 25-ish can find their shade.
* mixing process means that air is constantly getting trapped in, and making the bb cream slowly thicker.

**here’s some tips for those who want to also do the same:**

* first swatch the **#one** on your face and see how it compares
* grab one squirt of **#one** on a small plate or coaster, and a bit of the other shade until you slowly reach the shade you want
* when you have finally achieved it on the coaster, you can now pump it into the bottle itself. if you are brown or dark, i would recommend pumping **#white** or **#one** in.
* i would recommend getting a double-sided makeup spatula to mix. the small side keeps you from wasting so much product from mixing, and also easy to swatch on your arm and face.
* also: remember to keep your area very clean and disinfected. you don’t want to be mixing bacteria into your foundation ^-^