Laura Mercier Candleglow VS. Becca Aqua Luminous Perfecting Foundation

Y'all, I like to have glowy skin, as evidenced by this post on winter foundations, and as evidenced by this post on my highlighter collection. I might have over 20 of them. I might be obsessed.

I have dry skin, what can I say?

Two new glowy/luminous foundations hit the high end market recently, and I had to find out which one was better. I purchased them both at Sephora. As a dry skin girl with visible pores, sometimes powder highlighters can accentuate those issues. Sometimes I just want a glowy foundation. After a crazy amount of testing, I'm here to report my thoughts:

Laura Mercier Candleglow Soft Luminous Foundation

• $48
• 1 oz
• pump
• 24 shades
• light coverage

Here I am without flash and with flash. I wanted to show the amount of coverage you get, so no concealer or primers were used.

As much as I tried, I couldn't really build coverage with this. That is typical of a dewy foundation. It wore fine and I really liked it.

This one is oil-free.

Becca Aqua Luminous Perfecting Foundation

• $44
• 1 oz
• dropper
• 8 shades
• light coverage

And again without flash and with. Many foundations have titanium dioxide and/or reflective particles, like mica in them. When a flash camera is used, this is called flashback. Just something to keep in mind if you're having your pictures taken.

With the Becca foundation, I had to build up the coverage. If I tried to use a large amount at first, it would look awful. But if I did a couple of small layers, it looked better. 

I couldn't stand the dropper applicator. It was frustrating to use.

The dimethicone did cause me to get pimples sometimes when I wore this.

I felt it settled into pores and fine lines after hours of wear, without a primer.

Here I applied one foundation to each side of my face. The Becca is on your left.  Laura Mercier is on your right. The pictures are with flash, natural light, studio lights, and after an entire day of wearing. Again, I didn't wear concealer. Can't tell a difference? You can definitely tell I have a cold! ;)

Overall:

• Both of these looked much better in person than they are photographing. That's hard to do with a natural, glowy foundation. If I'm glowing in pics, I'm usually piling on the highlighter.
• Becca had more of a dewy glow and was a bit tackier on the skin.
• Although they are quite similar, Laura Mercier Candleglow was my favorite of the two, although online reviews have Becca as the better one.
• Would I purchase either foundation again? No. But I have enjoyed wearing them.

Oily Skin? Check out these posts:

• Maybelline Dream Matte Velvet Review
• New drugstore foundations

Extra Elle:

• Behind the scenes: I took pictures of the foundation bottles on 4 different days, with 4 different backgrounds, before deciding I liked these the best. That's crazy, right? And the pics of me, I took on 3 different occasions.
• I'm starting to get better from this nasty cold. I'm hoping it's gone by the time I head to Disney World this weekend!
• Since Google Friend Connect is deleting anyone from it without a Google account, you won't be able to follow my blog if that applies to you. Please follow me on Bloglovin instead. Thanks, y'all.