Review: Rimmel Fix & Protect Makeup Primer and Match Perfection Foundation

*Rimmel is not listed as a cruelty free brand*

In my experience Rimmel has been great at producing quality drugstore base products for the most part so I was happy to try out their recent releases:  their newest makeup primer called Fix & Protect and their "new and improved" Match Perfection Foundation...  

Despite being seduced by the lure of the higher end brands, I'm like everyone else out there in the real world and can also be swayed by a good bargain so it made sense for me to try these out - especially the primer. I'm a bit of a primer "snob" and have mostly stuck to high end products so I was curious to see how Rimmel's new entry compares. Let's start with that shall we?

Rimmel Fix & Protect Makeup Primer

Rimmel says this new primer acts in three ways:

• Protects the skin from pollution and UV related skin damage including hyper-pigmentation
• Fixes and perfects appearance of skin with its light-diffusing properties to blur blemishes
• Extends the life of your makeup, staying mattified for up to 7 hours

My impressions:
I'll get straight to it. I found the Fix & Protect Makeup Primer to be a nice product but not a holy grail for me.  On the positive side the texture is very light - not siliconey in the slightest - and smooth. It feels like a light moisturising lotion when applying and as you can see below it does have an instant illuminating effect on the skin when blended in, producing an almost pearlescent sheen.  

This primer can be worn alone if you have the right complexion, but pale old me looks more ghostly than ethereal with this alone so I'm only ever going to wear it as a foundation base.  It did allow foundation to glide onto the skin smoothly as I'd expect and I like the added SPF protection for sun protection.

Where the primer falls below expectation is its mattifying claims as despite me habitually setting my makeup with powder before I headed out the door, I found myself reaching to powder my t-zone again before midday.  Okay - I do have combination skin - especially at this time of year - so I think this primer would probably suit normal to dry skins better than mine.    

Rimmel Match Perfection Foundation

I've read this is Rimmel's "new and improved" version but I haven't tried the original so I can't do the old comparison for you here but I can see how it fares according to the claims listed below.  Spoiler alert:  I was a little more impressed with this than the primer!

• Skin matching due to "wonder-tone" technology resulting in weightless texture and invisible coverage. I have to say the shade 100 Ivory was a pretty good match for my skin and it definitely doesn't look made-up, although without powder it's just a little bit on the dewy side. Rimmel are on the mark with the weightless texture too as I pretty much forget that I have anything on when I'm wearing this foundation - it's one of the most comfortable I've tried and my skin doesn't feel there's a layer sitting on top of it at all. You can see in the picture below this foundation is quite liquid and almost runny so it's no surprise it feels so light on the skin. Despite the light texture it still provides good natural looking medium to full coverage as you can see when blended out (albeit quite heavily) on the back of my hand in the last picture.

• Perfecting and blurring the pores.  Yes it does a great job of taking care of those for me, especially on and around my nose. 

• Protecting the skin with 24HR moisture, SPF20 and Vitamin E.  I'll hopefully never have to put the 24HR claim to the test but the dewy formula definitely feels moisturising on my skin.  I was actually going to write that earlier so I'll say it now - it feels more like a lightweight moisturiser than makeup.

So my final thoughts? I was happy with the performance of this foundation and I can see it as an easy everyday choice.  Match Perfection Foundation is available in 8 shades.

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Rimmel Fix & Protect Makeup Primer and Match Perfection Foundation are available from Priceline, Big W, Woolworths, Coles and pharmacies.

(These products were provided for my consideration.  All comments and opinions are my own.)