L'oreal Infallible Pro-Matte Foundation Review and Swatches

L'oreal Paris has jumped on the matte foundation bandwagon with its newest formula, Infallible Pro-Matte. It promises a lasting, demi-matte finish that's never dull or flat. Let's take a look!

Pro-Matte comes in 8 shades and there is also a Pro-Matte powder available in 8 shades. They're a bit on the expensive side for a drugstore product at $13.79 each (at CVS) but I've found that in general, L'oreal has become much more expensive than the other drugstore brands, and has been for quite a while now.
This comes in a squeeze tube that's semi-see-through to help with shade selection. The only problem is that it's not 100% see-through, the tube has been mattified and that sort of gives it a translucent effect, but not completely transparent. Just looking at the tubes, there didn't seem to be much variation in the shades.
So I ended up going by the names and selected 102 Shell Beige because typically when a foundation shade has the word "shell" in its name, it's a cooler, pink-toned color, whereas shades with the word "warm" or "golden" tend to be yellow-based.

The back of the tube says that the finish is demi-matte, it wears up to 24 hours, has medium coverage, and has an air-light texture.

The foundation is definitely very lightweight...it dries extremely fast and just melts in like a second skin.  I swatched it on my arm and took a picture right away and you can see how it's starting to dry around the edges already.  So when I apply this, I have to work in small sections.  The tube says to apply it with your fingers in a rolling motion, but I typically use a Beauty Blender or Real Techinques sponge to get a more flawless effect.  I've found that with dry skin, using a damp sponge also helps to minimize flaking.

The coverage is medium as the package states and it lasted all day on me.  I didn't test the 24 hour claims because I wash my face at night, but it wasn't showing signs of fading at bedtime.  Below are my before and afters...it didn't cover everything, but it did a good job evening out my skin and I love the demi-matte finish, because it's not powdery and flat.  You can see in the after photo that there's still a little bit of "glow" where the light hits my cheeks and nose but it's in no way shiny or sparkly. It's just a nice satin finish.

Before- No Foundation

After- Wearing L'Oreal Pro-Matte

Overall, I really love this foundation! It's super lightweight and undetectable on the skin and it covers fairly well.  I love the finish because it's matte without being dull or flat.  It also has no scent so those who are sensitive will like that as well.
The problem is, if you have dry skin, you'll have some issues with this clinging to dry patches.  The first time I used this we were having a warm spell around Christmas time with almost 60 degree weather for a week straight and my skin was returning to it's Spring/Summer state of being more on the normal side. At the time, this applied beautifully with no issues.  Fast forward to yesterday when I sat down to do this review and take pictures and my skin is totally different than it was a few weeks ago.  We've had single-digit weather the past week or so and my skin is drier than ever, so when I applied this, it clung to dry, flaky areas like crazy, highlighted my pores and accentuated wrinkles. I had a feeling it might do that, so I had used a heavy moisturizer and a primer to try to combat it, but I still had issues getting it to look good.
So I'll be putting this away until the Spring when my skin returns to a normal state and will continue to use more moisturizing formulas for now.  If you're normal to oily though, this foundation is amazing if you're looking for a matte finish that lasts and doesn't look flat.

What do you think?  Have you tried this yet, or are you planning to buy it?