Wet n Wild Photo Focus Foundation | Review & Swatches

2017-04 / 27 Comments

The Wet n Wild Photo Focus Foundation is fairly new and I’ve been testing it out for the past couple of months. Wet n Wild is an awesome, cruelty free, and super affordable drugstore brand that is also pretty widely available. If you aren’t lucky enough to find their products in store, they’re also available on their website.

Wet n Wild Photo Focus Foundation Review

The Photo Focus Foundation is new to their line and it’s the newest addition to their foundations. It’s the first foundation I’ve tried from Wet n Wild and I have many things to say about it.

I adore the bottle, it’s actually really nice and I was kind of surprised. It’s a cute, square, glass bottle and it’s cute on my vanity. Rather than a pump, it has a plastic spatula in it to get the product out. It can be a little messy, but I’m sure you realize that. I recommend dispensing it onto a clean surface to keep everything sanitary.

Wet n Wild Photo Focus Foundation Review and Swatches

It smells like paint. Seriously. I’d make a comment about it but MAC foundations also smell like paint so that’s a thing that people accept as normal. Who am I to judge?

Here’s a little description of the product and what it’s supposed to do:

It’s made with a matte, light diffusing complex that gives your skin a flawless appearance. It has a light adjusting complex that helps to prevent white cast in photos. It was tested under 7 light conditions with and without flash.

That’s all that it says about it on the website. There are no claims of coverage or wear time. This foundation has a nice color selection, which is great considering it’s a cruelty free drugstore option. There aren’t many of those and the majority have a small color range.

The Photo Focus Foundation comes in 20 shades.

The shade I have is Nude Ivory. It’s a pretty good match. The range of warm, cool, and neutral undertones is pretty good as well.

Wet n Wild Photo Focus Foundation Swatch

I prefer to apply this with a beauty blender, and since it dries to a demi-matte finish, I like to use a dewy primer underneath. This dries down pretty quickly and doesn’t need powdered on my dry skin. I don’t think it would need powdered on normal skin either as it dries to a powder finish. Oily skin would probably still want to set it.

This is a medium coverage and I can layer it but the second layer needs to be very thin. I prefer not to layer it because it does get cakey and heavy quickly and I hate that. I’m not the biggest fan of full coverage foundations, though because I don’t like how they feel. I prefer it with one layer.

Once it dries, I don’t find that it sinks into my pores or fine lines immediately, but throughout the day it will start to. Around the 4 hour mark is when this happens. It’ll start to break up and look slightly cakey on me after 6 hours, which is typical when I wear most normal foundations that have a more matte finish, no matter what I do.

At first, I really fell in love with this foundation. It’s affordable, cruelty free and honestly performed as well as the higher end foundations. I still preferred my dewy foundations, but as far as foundations with matte finishes went, this was one of the best I’d tried, personally. I wore it consistently for two weeks.

Then, I realized I had more texture and breakouts than normal. I didn’t really think about it much, I just assumed it was more issues with hormonal breakouts. So, I kept using it and it kept getting worse. After 3 weeks, I stopped. I started using my IT Cosmetics foundations again and didn’t use the Wet n Wild foundation at all. I noticed that a lot of the acne and texture cleared up. When I started using the Wet n Wild foundation again, it came back. I’ve went back and forth for the past two months to make sure, because I have tons of issues with acne right now and I wanted to be sure it wasn’t a coincidence, but it’s not.

I can 100% say that the Photo Focus foundation is causing me to break out. I still wear it every once in a while for a short amount of time, but if I wear it all day long, even just for one day, I’ll break out. My skin doesn’t like it and I’m kind of sad about that.

So, here’s my final thoughts and review.

I love the foundations. I love the coverage, medium is perfect for me. The finish isn’t my favorite because I’m not the biggest fan of matte foundations, but some days I do like it. I love that it dries quickly and to a powder finish. The color selection is great and the undertones are good, too. It’s affordable and easy to find. The packaging is cute. It smells like paint. It makes me break out like a 12 year old. I do that well enough on my own and I don’t need the assistance.

For me, this is an unfortunate no go. I love it but man, I hate it. I’m still using it like a psychopath, but mostly for days that I’m just playing around with makeup and I’m washing it off after an hour or two because I don’t need the extra acne and struggles.

If you’re not acne prone and don’t have sensitive skin, you’ll probably be fine with this foundation. I know that a lot of people use it, I’m not sure how many people are having issues with it.

Have you tried this foundation?

Thanks for reading!

27 Comments

  • breedlovehoops

    2017-04 at 7:41 pm Reply

    Foundations are an absolute nightmare for me because I always end up with the wrong shade and breakouts. It's a bummer this didn't work out for you, but I definitely feel your pain.

  • BeginNails Kristi V

    2017-04 at 2:13 am Reply

    Bummer that it caused break outs. 🙁 I'm acne prone, so this wouldn't work for me. I love that you used it for so long to really test it out & give it a fair chance.

  • Jen Sky Walker

    2017-04 at 3:31 am Reply

    I bought this recently and have been liking it a lot so far. I've had a few breakouts, but based on timing, I'm not sure if it's from the foundation or my monthly cycle. I suppose only time will tell….

  • Renu X

    2017-04 at 10:31 am Reply

    Gosh! How awful that it made you break out! That's the worst. Some of Lancome's liquid foundations tend to break me out, as also Revlon Photo Ready. Glad your breakouts cleared soon enough.

  • Erika Costello

    2017-04 at 5:52 pm Reply

    I know that a lot of people like this foundation but from reading a lot of reviews, I don't think that it would work for my Sahara Desert dry, old hag face. I was going to pick it up but I think I'll pass. 🙂

    • nikmakeupjunkie

      2017-05 at 3:47 am Reply

      Haha! It can be a bit much on dry skin. It worked okay on mine as long as I prepped well enough but then it turned on me and broke me out so it betrayed me anyway.

  • Kerry Lee

    2017-04 at 6:18 pm Reply

    Ugh, sucks that it makes you break out! I haven't tried this one and honestly I probably won't since I have pretty sensitive skin.

  • Nina

    2017-04 at 2:59 am Reply

    Too bad this didn't agree with your skin, it seemed so promising in the beginning. I'll probably avoid just be safe, I have picky skin!

  • TENDERHEARTR

    2017-04 at 3:19 am Reply

    I have it and really want to love it but I just can't. It sits really weirdly on my skin. I don't particularly like applying foundation in the first place and when it is fussy and requires a lot of messing with combinations of primer/no primer, etc… I just don't want to deal with it. So the search continues.

    • nikmakeupjunkie

      2017-05 at 3:49 am Reply

      I feel the same. I didn't even wear foundation until a few years ago. I hated the way it felt. I still prefer a BB cream or tinted moisturizer. I won't mess with anything too fussy. If I have to spend time working with it and doing different things to make it work, it's too high maintenance for me.

  • Keely

    2017-09 at 3:47 am Reply

    I love this foundation BUT it made me have the most horrible case of acne that I've ever experienced in my LIFE. I'm filming a movie right now and am a lead role, and we had to cancel a few shoots because my acne was suddenly so bad (I started using this product halfway through filming and the foundation is 100% what caused me break out.) Painful, really red acne all over my face and neck..worse than when I was a teenager! At least I know I'm not the only one, but I'm sorry you broke out too. It's really an awesome foundation otherwise.

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