Black Radiance BB Cream Review + Photos (Brown Sugar)

Black Radiance BB Cream Display in Walgreens (has testers!)

Black Radiance BB Cream (Brown Sugar)

Black Radiance BB Cream Brown Sugar Swatch

Black Radiance BB Cream Brown Sugar (blended a little bit)

Black Radiance BB Cream Brown Sugar (fully blended)

Me without face make up (only eyebrows, eye shadow, mascara & lip balm) I have some dark spots on my forehead/cheeks and hyper-pigmentation around my mouth area that I am hoping the Black Radiance BB Cream will blur or cover.

Me with one layer of the Black Radiance BB Cream Brown Sugar ( no primer, just moisturizer)

Me with Black Radiance BB Cream Brown Sugar with a second layer built on my cheeks and forehead

Me with the Black Radiance BB Cream and the rest of my makeup (setting powder,highlight, contour,bronzer, blush, concealer on under eye and on hyper-pigmentation, lip gloss).

After three hours of wearing the Black Radiance BB  Cream (w/ other makeup) no touch-ups.

On to the review!

Product Claim/Info: “NEW True Complexion™ BB Cream, our first multi-purpose skin perfecter, evens and refines darker complexions with 10 skin care benefits for natural looking radiance. Exclusively formulated to enhance ethnic skin tones, the lightweight, oil-free beauty balm moisturizes, conceals, primes, smooths, and minimizes shine with blend-able, sheer color and lasting SPF 15 protection.” – From Black Radiance Website. 

The bb cream comes in 5 shades: Cafe, Chocolate, Honey Amber, Brown Sugar, and Coffee Glaze.

This product can be found at Walgreens for $6.49 or $5.49 with the dollar off coupon taped to the bb cream.

Packaging:

I’m not a huge fan of the packaging. The gold bottom piece and font color look too mature and dated but for $6.49 one can not expect knock out packaging.

My Application:

I did not use a primer just a moisturizer. I used the ELF powder brush to blend the bb cream onto my skin. You can also use your fingers or a Beauty Blender.

The Good:

very lightweight, very watery, evens skin-tone, primes, smooths, minimizes shine, very blend-able, sheer (this is good if you like this type of coverage), adjusts to skin-tone, oil-free, has spf 15, inexpensive, has testers, did not break me out, great shade selection for people with darker skin, nice natural/slightly dewy skin-like finish, lasts at least 3 hours.

The Bad:

maybe hard to find in stores, sheer to light coverage (this is bad if you need or like medium to full coverage), build-able from a sheer to light coverage,does not cover dark spots/hyper-pigmentation, will need to add concealer/foundation to get more coverage, needs to be set with a powder, do not like the scent (it has that makeup scent)

Overall:

Here is the thing. Some people are going to love this bb cream and some people will hate it. It will come down to coverage to determine if you love or hate it. If you have decent skin or you like light coverage you will probably love this. If you have a lot of dark spots and hyper-pigmentation that you want to cover or if you just like medium to full coverage you will probably hate this bb cream.

I personally like the bb cream but  I wish it had more coverage. I do have some dark spots and hyper-pigmentation that the bb cream does not cover. For me the bb cream only evened out my skin-tone, smoothed and minimized my oiliness. I prefer light to medium coverage and I do not mind if some of my imperfections show through my bb creams or foundations. I liked the color Brown Sugar for me in this bb cream I think it was a good match. I might try the shade Chocolate just to see if that shade works for me too. For reference I am a Mac NW47.

Overall, I would give the Black Radiance BB Cream a (B-) just because I believe it needs more coverage. I plan to wear this bb cream for quick errands, in hot weather or to the gym.  I would repurchase the bb cream because I like the way it feels on my skin and I have a use for it. I would only recommend the Black Radiance BB Cream to people who have decent skin and/or who like light coverage. I actually like the Black Radiance BB Cream better than the other BB Creams that I own (Iman & Maybelline). I would love to try out the Kiss BB Cream and compare it to the Black Radiance BB Cream. Oh yeah, stay tuned to my blog I plan on doing a battle of the drugstore bb creams for dark skin blog post.

Have you tried the Black Radiance BB Cream? Do you like it? If not, What bb creams do you use?