Try this foundation if you:

• Want a good daily foundation
• Like a natural finish
• Need it to last through a typical workday for a desk jockey
• Prefer light to medium coverage
• Have neutral to warm undertones (at least in the lighter shades)

Try something else if you:

• Prefer buildable to full coverage
• Need something fully water- and sweat-proof
• Have cool undertones
• Are on the lightest end of the shade spectrum

I never imagined that my very first POC product to review would be foundation! As someone with light Caucasian skin, I assumed that finding a foundation would be made a thousand times more difficult than what it is even with a mainstream market that already caters to my skin tone. Luckily for this project, foundation turned out to be the first and easiest product for me to find, test, and wear.

One of the challenges with confining yourself to lesser-known brands is that it’s much more difficult to swatch and try products in person. Aside from Fenty, and now (hurray!) Juvia’s Place and Beauty Bakerie in select Sephora and Ulta stores, most POC brands are only available for order online. Most people simply cannot afford to order multiple full-sized products; and brands may not have the operating budget to prepare samples.

Thankfully, a few companies offer samples of their foundations.

• Laws of Nature Cosmetics offers affordable $5 samples. 
• Plain Jane Beauty will send you a set of four foundation samples, grouped from light to dark, for $13.
• And Hue Noir will send you four samples for FREE!

My middle name is FREE, so naturally I sent away for the Hue Noir foundation.  The samples arrived in sealed envelopes just two days after I filled out the form online. I received the four lightest shades: Cashew, Toasted Coconut, Macademia, and Tiramisu.

As you can see above, these shades run pretty warm and yellow. I have a neutral skin tone (pinker on my arm here than my face or neck), and I was really worried that none of these would work. However, I soldiered on and tried Macademia, which was the closest match to my current foundation.

Something kind of magical happened on my face. In other reviews I’ve watched, vloggers found that the Hue Noir went on one way and dried down another, appearing lighter or darker or warmer or cooler. I found, too, that although I cringed at how yellow it went on my face, when I blended it into my skin it melted in and adjusted so that it was a lovely, seamless match to my face and neck. I was delighted!

Once on, it dried down beautifully. This foundation has light to medium coverage, a lovely semi-matte finish, and a very “my-skin-but-better” effect. Upon futher experimentation, I did not find it particularly buildable. If I added more, I did not get much more coverage. As I continued with my routine, I found that it played very well with all my other products.

I was also pleased with how it wore throughout the day. It controlled my oil better than the Wet ‘n’ Wild foundation; as an oily type I expect to have to blot a few times, but I needed fewer blots with the Hue Noir. The wear was consistent through more tests, including one without my trusty mattifying primer. One particular evening I found myself 13 hours into the day and my skin still looked wonderful.

Overall, this is a good daily foundation, and as soon as I run out of the Wet ‘n’ Wild I will be ordering it for my own use. If this sounds like a foundation that you might enjoy, please order samples and try it! Hue Noir is a business well worth supporting.

Disclaimer: The views I express about this product are mine alone. I did not receive this product specifically for the purposes of reviewing it, nor did I have any communication with Hue Noir about writing a review. I received this sample for free by submitting an online request form available to all customers.