Canadian makeup line Vasanti Cosmetics recently became available at Shoppers and Rexall locations—you may have spotted its swank blue and red packaging or read about it over at Beautygeeks or the now-on-hiatus Sugarshock.
Why should you care? Well, I was intrigued by the brand’s initial concept of catering to women with South Asian or other yellow-based skintones (it was, after all, founded a decade ago by three Canucks of South Asian descent). But now they’ve re-launched with options for every ethnicity, so I just had to put a few products to the test.
On the subject of skin stuff, I tried the Face Base Powder Foundation—and even on my not-very-yellowish Scottish skin, the colour was flattering and natural-looking. But I have to warn you—I’m only suggesting it for oily skin types. On me it was way too drying… maybe I’ll revisit in the summer. I’d give a miss to their concealer option, the Liquid Cover-Up, which offers both too much liquid and not enough covering-up (and was also very, very yellow on me).
They have some cute colour options, especially the Tinted Lipbalm, which SugarShock also sang the praises of. The Gel Lip & Cheek Stains are also pretty, but use them on your lips only—despite their claims, they’re annoyingly not very spreadable on your cheeks, so you could end up with patchy bits.
Skip the Lipshine lip gloss (non-sticky but too goopy) and the loose Shimmer Powders (nothing against Vasanti here per se, but I just don’t get the point of them, and there wasn’t enough pigment to make them work as eye shadows).
Available at select Shoppers Drug Mart and Rexall Pharma Plus locations and online at amazon.com and vasanticosmetics.com.
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