It’s been a while since I tried any Romanian makeup product, for one because we have almost none. There are just a couple of brands that have very few makeup products. And, the ones that I did try were honestly crap.

I remember I used to own a Gerovital foundation back in high school and it was the cheapest thing you could find on the market. The foundation was awful, it was fluid like a tinted moisturizes, it oxidized on the skin and the shade range was non-existent.

Now, the Farmec company has finally launched a couple of years ago a makeup line under the name Gerovital Beauty. I signed up on their Facebook page to receive some free samples of their foundation and they have send them to me. However, this post in not sponsored in no shape or form, because I was not asked to review it in exchange for the samples. I received 6 sachets with the different foundation shades: Ivory, Nude, Natural Beige, Bronze Beige, Porcelain Beige and Golden Honey.

Packaging:

The full size foundation (30 ml) comes in a black plastic tube. The packaging of the entire makeup line is black and gold and it looks elegant and simple.

Texture:

This formula is not as liquid as the old one (it’s been almost 20 years since their attempt at making a foundation after all) and it has that rather thick creamy texture that most foundations have.

Ingredients:

I didn’t keep any of the sachets to see the full ingredients list, but the active ingredients are listed on the brand’s website as following:

Liposomal Sodium Hyaluronate and Aquaxyl for surface and deep moisturization
Vitamin E that provides protection to the skin as an antioxidant
Elastomeric silicone powder for a uniform, matte-satin effect
Corrective mineral pigments that achieve an instant coloration and uniformity of the skin’s texture
UV filters for a SPF 10

Price and accessibility:

I think that the makeup line is available only in Farmec stores as I haven’t seen it anywhere else (just their skin care products) but they are also available in their online shop. The prices are the same as for drugstore brands. This foundation retails for 57.10 lei (about 11-12 euros). I don’t think it’s too expensive or too cheap for what it is and that it’s a fair price.

My overall opinion:

The shade range is not terrible, but also not great. Out of all the samples I got I tried three: Ivory, Nude and Natural Beige. The one that suited me best was surprisingly the Natural Beige one. Ivory was a bit too fair and Nude was a hint too dark, which I wasn’t expecting considering the name. The other three are obviously too dark for me, so I didn’t opened them to swatch them because I gave them away.

The coverage is medium to strong. It’s not the type of foundation that has a light coverage and a little really goes a long way. I didn’t use any full sample sachet at once because I was afraid that it would look too heavy. I did apply a second layer on my pimples and red spots and it did a very good job at covering them.

The foundation has a matte finish, but it doesn’t make the skin look dry, so I think it works on all skin types, not just on oily or combination skin.

It doesn’t oxidize and it’s long-lasting. Under a face mask, there were some foundation traces on it, I’m not gonna lie, but it didn’t messed up my makeup and it wasn’t something too much.

The SPF 10 is useless as we all know by now that it doesn’t offer enough protection, so they shouldn’t have bothered to put it in the formula.

Overall, it’s a decent foundation, not the greatest I have used (even from the drugstore) and certainly not the worst. They also sent me a 15% off coupon for it, so maybe I will use it to make a purchase because I do need a foundation. But then again, maybe not, I’m not sure yet.

While the foundation hasn’t sold me on making it one of my “holy grail” makeup items, I appreciate the effort that Farmec does to put out some makeup products on the market considering that here in Romania we barely have any.

In case, you’re interested, they also ship to the EU on their online shop, farmec.eu (NOT and affiliated link, I make no commission or anything from it).