BARE ESCENTUALS wants you to throw out everything you know about liquid foundation when reading about their latest release. And this was their stance when releasing their famed bareMinerals Foundation many moons ago. The brand highly dislikes liquid foundation because at the time most were filled with chemicals and just overall bad for the skin. So I’m surprised and delighted at the same time with this new release from them.

When looking at the bottle of bareSkin Pure Brightening Serum Foundation Broad Spectrum SPF 20 ($29/1oz), it looks like any other liquid foundation you’d find at cosmetic counters/drugstores but they call this a foundation in the serum form. Ummm, huh? It’s a serum with half the ingredients of a traditional foundation and it comes with a lot of yes’s and no’s as in:

• No Oils
• No Silicon
• No Water
• No Parabens
• No Fragrance
• Hypoallergenic
• Non-Chemical Broad Spectrum SPF 20

Created for all skin types and tones, the super thin formula combines a tone-correcting mineral foundation and a brightening serum in one container. And you can adjust the coverage by how many drops you use: 2 drops = sheer coverage, 4 drops = medium coverage, 6 drops = full coverage.

So does this give my face the look of perfect skin like it’s goal? In a word, well two, surprisingly YES! I was super surprised at how it covered the few dark spots I have on my face that I haven’t been able to get rid of. I mean, it covered them lickety-split AND it didn’t fade after an hour or two.

What’s in this formula is, “an ultra-thin, weightless fluid that harnesses jojoba-coated mineral pigments suspended in a coconut-derived base. Combined with a potent blend of vitamin C and supercharged lilac plant stem cells.” So it not over covers up marks on the face but the vitamin C will help make them fade away for good. And from one of their studies, they claim 95% of participants in a clinical study saw a measurable improvement in the appearance of dark spots over an 8 week period. Hmmmm. Well I’m going to use foundation anyway so might as well help out the dark spots I’ve been wanting to rid my face of, right?

And they recommend using this with their cool Perfecting Face Brush ($28). The brush has a reservoir in the middle of it where you drop the drops of foundation. I’m sure you can get good coverage with just using your fingers or a sponge but this using this buffing brush is actually pretty fun … as much as foundation application can be fun. 

Choose from 20 shades @ bareminerals.com and nordstrom.com.

Is this a foundation you’ll be checking out? 

Disclosure: A sample of this item was provided for review purposes.