Lisa Eldridge The Foundation Seamless Skin

It’s not the easiest, buying foundation online when you’ve never touched it, or been able to see how good a match it is to your complexion. So when Lisa Eldridge had her brilliant pop-up in Covent Garden at Christmas, Jo took the opportunity to nip in and try the make-up artist’s debut foundation for herself. Actually, they incredibly kindly gave her a little sample to take away. When it proved the perfect match, she sprung for the full-size.

Lisa’s pop-up may have popped off (to New York, we’re told!), but this foundation is worth seeking out – and Lisa, with her years of experience, is working to make it easy for us to find our perfect shade. First up (hurrah!), there are lots of them, covering Light (above), Light/Medium, Medium, Medium/Deep and Deep (arrayed below.

In normal circs, having established your skintone ‘family’ – and the pictures are very true, in our experience – then you’d then be able to order a sample shade of four tones suitable for your complexion. However, right now, some of those are out of stock so we suggest making a diary note to revisit.

If you decide just to go for a bottle of Lisa Eldridge The Foundation Seamless Skin, we certainly know you’re going to love the formulation. Lisa calls it an ‘intelligently formulated, skin friendly foundation, with customisable medium coverage that can be dialled up or down. Self setting, it blends effortlessly to smooth and unify skin with a noticeable soft focus effect. The formula contains a natural mesh-like ingredient which completely fuses with skin after blending. The final finish is neither dewy or flat matte but something skin-like and in between.’

That really nails it, frankly. Not matte, not dewy, but VERY flattering – and never looks overdone. You won’t need powder to set; it lasts on the skin really well, too.

Can we also just sing a little hymn of praise to the bottle? Most foundation bottles are tall and slim and prone to tipping over. Lisa’s is super-ergonomic, and lies flat on the table. Looking gorgeous.

Everything we’ve bought (and yes, we HAVE bought it all) from this collection has blown us away. Never mind a pop-up: we hope that you’re contemplating a flagship boutique, Ms. Eldridge.

You’ve certainly got the foundations of a great make-up empire. Um, in every way…

£44 for 30ml – buy here