Idealist

Recently I came across Estée Lauder’s Idealist Even Skintone Illuminator and at first I did not quite know if this product would be for me.  My main skin concerns are that I have very large pores and that, as I have light skin, redness is always an issue.   When I approached the lady working at the store, she saw this right away and, rather than applying the Idealist under my moisturiser (as advised on the bottle), she suggested that I should treat it more like a primer.  She offered to apply the Idealist to my skin and that I should return 10 minutes later if I liked it. 

I really appreciate this when I am trying new products because it has happened quite a few times that something looks great on my skin in the shop, I buy the product and an hour later I get angry because it starts to look bad (especially with foundation)!  In general, it takes time for things to work on your skin and I have rarely come across an instant result with something like this. 

So after leaving the Idealist to settle for a while, I came back to the lady and was quite pleased with the result; my skin looked a lot less red, also in comparison to many things I have already tried especially against redness.  The fluid has a very nice, but subtle glow to it and I did notice that when I use it under my moisturiser this glow is easily lost.  So now I use the Idealist over the moisturiser and then the foundation over the Idealist.  It creates a very smooth surface, making the application of foundation much easier!  (My pores still looked normal, but the only thing so far I have come across to really have an effect on this was a chemical peel.)

For people who do not need to use any foundation, this fluid could be a nice way of evening out the skin tone, giving it a radiant glow but not using any colour.  Hopefully at some point I will be happy enough with my skin to just use the Idealist.

Although it is hard to tell really how much of an effect the Idealist does lastly have, I do think that during the day, my skin continues to be more radiant than usual and it is also less shiny from oil.  With a product like this I can only say that it is best if you ask to have it applied in store or if you can take home some sort of tester!  When I asked for testers I was given about 10 of them to take home and this is really helpful so that you can try it out more than just once.  And also be sure that you pick up the new Idealist, not the old one, if you decide to try it out as well.