Fenty Beauty Foundation: Oxidation vs. Dry Down

First of all, I have none of the Fenty Beauty drops so don't come in here looking for swatches. All I have are opinions and I think they're awesome so stay for that.

When buzz around Fenty Beauty first started to appear, I was a little wary of how everyone was raving about the number of shades of foundation she was planning to offer (40, btw.)

Image care of @fentybeauty

I just can't wrap my mind around this social injustice crusade on beauty. Brands will never be able to match each and every unique skin tone of the 7 billion people on earth. I always thought people with unique shades should learn about shade adjusting?? Currently I feel like there's so much anger about a lack of deep foundation shades, but there has also always been a lack of olive-toned foundation and extremely pale foundation, so why are people cherry-picking circumstances to conflate a non-existent war?

And now, because Rihanna has attempted to fill that void, everyone is crying about her foundation even without actually testing it. So I headed over to the first review I saw, Jeffree Star's, and checked the actual swatching.

That was a bad idea. JS has great skin and it's quite impossible to tell where his skin's beauty ends and the foundation's beauty begins. Fenty Beauty's Pro Filt'r Soft Matte Longwear Foundation though, oxidized about 2 shades while applying it, plus about 1 more for the rest of the video. I have several great foundations and I'm definitely not chopping my tits off over trying a heavily oxidizing one. Why are people still raving about it??? I just really want to know what the finish is like!!

And I've seen several angry defenses about how the liquid foundation is "drying down" rather than oxidizing. Basically, as a liquid, people are saying it's naturally changing color as it solidifies or sets. And they're claiming it doesn't change anymore once it's set. So it's good, it's normal, it works.

Foundation is not a guessing game. You're not supposed to pick a color that doesn't match you right now in the hopes that it will match later. Oxidation is when foundation changes color. Whether it changes in 3 minutes or 3 hours, oxidation is the name of that process. These people are using twenty new words to describe what's been called oxidation since the beginning of time. And they're trying to pass off "drying down" as a natural phenomenon for liquid foundations, when a quick check of other formulations can prove that this simply isn't true.

And you can like Fenty Foundation, it's okay. I've made similar compromises with makeup that's close to my heart and I don't want to fight about why I like it. But let's just call a spade "a spade" and not pretend that an oxidizing foundation is that great when we are really rallying behind a political statement, are excited by Rihanna's makeup, are astounded by the finish or are even just getting on a bandwagon. Those are all legitimate reasons to buy oxidizing foundation. But please stop this "dry down" crusade because it's just ridiculous!

I'm not even being a hater just to be contrary. I actually want to get the lip gloss and some of the sticks! Definitely not that punk-ass, chunk-ass pressed highlighter though.

*header image care of hot97svg.com