Review: Hard Candy CC Creme (Light)

 Retail Price: $8.00

1.5 oz/42.5 g

Shade 618 (Light)

Made to balance the complexion with a soft natural finish and protect the skin with spf 15, according to Hard Candy's website, the CC Creme is "formulated with special light optical pearls that neutralize the undertones of your skin."  You're then left with radiant, flawless, and color corrected skin!

  

My skin did appear radiant, flawless, and color corrected, but I was NOT in love.  Want to know why?

 The Hard Candy CC Creme packaging is gorgeous; I have to admit that.  The tube is not matte but it is not super glossy either. It's like a hybrid and looks expensive (hehe).  And you're getting more product than the typical drugstore BB/CC creams often offered (instead of 1 oz you're getting 1.5 oz).

 But there are a lot of issues to this CC creme.

1) The product is kind of runny.  This can be a good thing because blending wise, the CC creme blended like a dream.  However, I let a friend take a peek at this, and wham!  She squeezed a bunch of product out into the cap by accident and didn't bother to clean it, leaving me with a goopy mess.  This doesn't look attractive.

2)   I bought the shade light and I'm left with a crazy dark product!  Can we talk about the shade name being a little misleading? I was aware the shades ran a little dark, but this isn't quite what I was expecting.  I usually wear medium (the camera is making my skin look much paler than in person), so even light was too dark for my skin.

3) The product separates (see left picture below).  If you don't shake the tube up well, you're left with white chunks dispersed in brown liquid.  It's pretty unappealing when you think about this being put on the skin. I don't know why, but because of the way the product looked, I was much more hesitant, thinking the product would break me out (it didn't thankfully).

But I swear, this thing will blend out perfectly and make your skin look like you have a healthy tan.  I blended out the product around my skin (right above picture), and you can see that I look golden.  The lighting has changed, but the way the creme blended onto my skin was amazing.

Left side of photo (No CC Creme)--Right side of photo (CC Creme)

Here is a more accurate depiction of what the CC creme looks like blended out.  I thought it looked pretty radiant, flawless, and color corrected!  So I was anxious to try this on my face. It blended well, leaving me with a quite dewy finish. I set this with some powder, and it lasted me through the day.  There was breakage in the CC creme around the sixth hour (even set with powder). I have oily/combination skin, so the product started breaking down around my nose but no where else.

I was indoors all day, so I don't know how well this would last in sweltering weather.

I could get over the separation, dark color, and runny consistency of Hard Candy's CC Creme, but I cannot get over the "special light optical pearls that neutralize the undertones of the skin."  In natural light, you will look radiant, but once night time settles in or you take a step under fluorescent lighting, BAM!  I had iridescent glitter all over my face.  I didn't notice at all until I stepped into a different room without natural lighting that there was little specks of glitter all over my face.  I felt like a sparkling vampire, and I was not pleased.

I was not able to capture the glitter on my face in photos.  It's not noticeable from a distance, but when you're up closer, the glitter does show through in my opinion.  I wouldn't be comfortable using this on my face again because of the shimmer, but I don't think I would mind using this product elsewhere, maybe part of the legs for an extra glow, but only to not waste the product that I have.

I wouldn't repurchase, and I wouldn't recommend this to those who have oily skin (it won't last) or if you don't like glitter iridescence all over your face (in a similar way that Revlon Photoready has its shimmering iridescence).  If you however do like the Revlon Photready line of products or don't mind a bit of "optical pearls," go for it! The golden tan is pretty epic. 

Hard Candy is available at Walmart and the product comes in four shades (Fair, Light, Medium, and Dark).