I was never much of a makeup person growing up. I think it could be attributed to the fact that I grew up mostly around boys, as I have 3 brothers and a lot of male cousins. I had a couple of female cousins, but we never really gelled. I found it so much easier to connect to the boys in my family.
So anyway, having grown up around boys, I knew next to nothing about makeup until high school. It’s only now that I’m in college that I’m starting to experiment very lightly. It’s a bit sad but at the same time, looking back, I didn’t really have much of a need for makeup while I was growing up because I had and I still have normal skin. I get a few pimples here and there, but nothing I’d stress too much about. I guess you could say I got lucky.
Now that I’m in college, I started forming friendships with the female species of the human race and found that a lot of them are makeup junkies at this point. I go to a university that’s a melting pot of different races, so I also have a few East Asian friends which is great because I have Japanese blood. These Asian friends of mine have been raving about BB creams since the fad started and I just couldn’t get it. To me, it’s just another version of a tinted moisturizer. I have nothing against tinted moisturizers because they’re practically the only form of makeup I use right now, plus some tinted lip balm and some eyeliner when I feel like it.
One day when I went shopping with my friends, we stopped over at the beauty section of the mall’s department store. They were trying out different kinds of face gunk and I just stood there enjoying watching them make ridiculous faces at the mirrors. When they got tired of that, they were like a whirlwind of hair and scent trying on different kinds of face cream on me. I admit I was a little terrified when they started raving after they did a swatch of one of the creams on my wrist. They said that I totally had to buy it because it goes real well with my yellowish skin tone. They didn’t stop egging me on until I actually paid for the item at the counter.
It turns out they got me to buy Nanoce BB Cream #2. There were only two colour choices and since #1 was way too light, my friends said it was better that I go with # 2 as it matched my skin tone better. I guess it also helped that Nanoce is a Japanese brand, thus the better match for my yellowish skin. Some of the other creams that my friends swathed on me had a greyish tinge, which I found slightly weird.
After the day at the mall, it appeared that I had unconsciously, and slightly unwillingly, jumped on the BB cream bandwagon.
The next morning, I tried it out on my face for the first time. At first, I didn’t know how I should apply it but because it looked like my tinted moisturizer I just squeezed out a pea sized amount and spread it all over my face.
It wasn’t as thick as the tinted moisturizer that I was using, so I immediately took a liking to it. I like that it’s a bit runnier in consistency, as it made it easier and quicker to apply. It’s so light that sometimes, I forget that I have anything on my face.
Now, like I mentioned above, I don’t really break out but I do get a few pimples every now and then, and that leaves some marks. I was surprised at how easily the this BB Cream concealed those marks. It’s pretty convenient that way, because I find applying concealer on each one of my pimple marks rather tedious. I don’t like spending a lot of time in front of the mirror.
After using Nanoce BB Cream for a few months, here are some of the things that I noticed about it:
Pros
- It’s very easy to apply and that’s great for a makeup novice like me.
- Coverage is okay (conceals my dark spots) and it lasts the whole day.
- The shade matches my skin tone perfectly. It makes me look like I have flawless skin!
- My friends said it minimizes my pores. I took their word for it because I didn’t even know I had noticeable pores back then. Again, I don’t like spending hours staring at my face in the mirror.
- It has SPF (I don’t know how much), so I don’t feel too guilty about ditching my old tinted moisturizer that had SPF 15.
Cons
- The only thing I don’t really like about it is the smell. It smells like a chemical, sort of medicinal. I can’t really place it. But the scent fades away eventually once the product has settled on my face.
- It’s always out of stock at the place where we bought it (must be in high demand). I find I usually have to go online and pay for shipping when I need another tube.
- It tends to make my face slightly oily at the end of the day during summer, but I find that I only need to dab my face with tissue and it’s okay again. It might not work out so well for girls with oily skin though. I have a friend who’s got oily skin, and I noticed that her skin looks oilier during summer.
I could only think about three cons since I don’t have a lot of experience with makeup. Prior to this, the only other thing I used on my face was my tinted moisturizer.
Anyway, if you’re like me who’s got oily skin and don’t spend too much time applying makeup every morning, you may want to give Nanoce BB Cream a try. It’s the only thing on my dresser that I currently cannot live without.
