Light Base for the Colder Season: L'Occitane Immortelle Precious BB Cream SPF30

As my skin continues to improve, I've gotten more into lighter bases: foudations with lighter coverage, tinted moisturizers, BB creams, the works. Yeah, I know; BB, CC and other alphabet creams are so passé these days. To be honest though, I really don't care how a brand chooses to market their base products - I'll try them anyway, and evaluate according to their performance and my current needs, no matter the name. So that's exactly how I'm going to review this L'Occitane Immortelle Precious BB Cream SPF 30 in the Fair shade ($45 for 1.3 fl oz/ 40ml).

L'Occitane claims that their BB Cream will even out the skintone, soften the signs of stress and fatigue, and protect the skin thanks to the UV filter. I believe the SPF ingredient for this product is Titanium Dioxide, although L'Occitane doesn't provide a full ingredients' list on their website (now, THAT is passé!), so I'm not too sure. It also contains immortelle essential oil, which has anti-aging properties.

First off, I really like the packaging for this BB Cream: it's a slim plastic tube with a tiny nozzle, which makes it very easy to control the amount of product you're squeezing out. Yes, the price point is a bit out there (which I actually find to be true for most L'Occitane products, so I wasn't surprised), but you're also getting about a third more than in a regular foundation (40 vs 30ml).

The Immortelle Precious BB Cream is a light cream that spreads and blends very easily into the skin. It does have a pretty strong sharp floral fragrance - I could definitely do without it. It's also quite a bit different than the herbal scent of other products in the Immortelle skincare range. The coverage is higher than I expected; light to medium, depending on the application. As you can see in my face shot (no concealer, no powder, applied over a pore-minimizing primer used in the T-zone), it definitely evens out my skin and conceals redness, but my freckles, little spots and other marks are still showing through.

This BB Cream definitely has a very glowy finish on the skin. When freshly applied, I absolutely love the effect on my skin; it looks natural and luminous, and doesn't sink into enlarged pores or lines. It also feels moisturizing but non-sticky. Unfortunately, even powdered, it only lasts on my combination skin for about 2-3 hours, at which point it starts getting very shiny, and seems to make my smile lines and pores a lot more obvious. I've even tried mixing it in with a matte long-wearing foundation, but it still caused much faster oil break-through in the T-zone.

L-R: L'Occitane Precious BB Cream in Fair, Revlon Colorstay in Ivory, Guerlain Baby Glow in Light

As for the shade match, this BB Cream comes in only three shades, out of which I have the lightest - Fair. As you can see in the arm swatch, compared to some of my other fair/ light foundations, it's strangely... gray. I realize that the grey tone is similar to the shade range of original Korean BB Creams, but the gray undertone causes my skin to look a bit unnatural (dare I say, corpse-like?) - it's not very obvious when it's blended in, but I don't love it 100%. I think the Fair shade would only work for skintones in the NW10 range (fair with cool/ pink undertones).

All in all, I would say that the L'Occitane Immortelle Precious BB Cream is a nice product, but unfortunately not geared towards my skintype. If your skin is normal to dry, and you're looking for something fuss-free with good sun protection, this should fit the bill, especially in the fall and winter. However, the Immortelle BB could definitely benefit from a wider shade range; as it is, there's only a few select skintones that are able to find a match. Have you tried any make-up products from L'Occitane? What is your favorite base product with lighter coverage?