Benefit Big Easy Multi-Balancing Complexion Perfector

My love for Benefit has been growing slowly but surely over the past few months. I’ve tried a lot of their eye products and colour products but I hadn’t yet tried any of their foundations or bases. I figured that I had more than enough foundations BUT I was in the market for a new BB cream. One of the lovely ladies at the Benefit counter gave me a sample of Big Easy to try and I was impressed enough to go back and buy the full size version. Now I’m not sure what happened between the sample and the full size but sadly, Big Easy does not live up to its name.

The Brand – Benefit

By now, everyone probably knows the story behind Benefit and how it was founded by twin sisters Jean & Jane Ford in 1976. Benefit have always struck me as a fun brand, I like the effort they put into their product names and awesome packaging. Their boxed blushes and bronzers are some of my favourites. They’ve also recently hit up the market with their new Push-Up Liner, which has strongly divided bloggers into love and hate camps (you can read my review here).

The Product – Big Easy Multi-Balancing Complexion Perfector ($55.00 for 30ml)

Like the Push-Up Liner, Big Easy is another recent addition to Benefit’s product line. It’s marketed as a “multi-balancing complexion perfector” but if you’re like me, you probably read that and thought, a what now? It’s meant to be “better than BB Cream” but if I were to class it as anything, it would be a BB Cream.  It is oil free, non-greasy and also has an SPF of 30 which is pretty impressive for a base product, most are in the range of 15 to 20. Unfortunately, it is quite pricey AND it only comes in 6 shades, I ended up getting #04 Medium which is pretty perfect for my skin tone.

Using the product

One of the things I loved about Big Easy was the finish. While the product comes out liquid, the finish is very matte, almost powdery which is an absolute dream for oily skinned gals. I found that it looked really nice on (at first) and made me look like I just happened to have really amazing, even-toned, glowing skin. Sounds like a dream right? Well, that’s where it all went wrong. While I do have oily skin, I get the occasional dry patch and Big Easy was an absolute NIGHTMARE with dry patches. No matter how well I moisturised or how well I applied it, it just clung to every single piece of dry flaky skin and make me look like an extra in a horror movie, Night of the Living Flake or something. I also found that it tended to separate through the day and I ended up with it very obviously sitting on top of my skin in the areas around my nose and forehead. I wanted to love this, I really did but I just ended up looking horrible and I couldn’t stand having my dry patches look so obvious. I’m pretty sad that I ended up spending $55 on this and not being able to use it. I’m hoping once summer comes around, it might work better for me and if you have super oily skin, I think it would be a dream to use but sadly for me, this is going into the dud pile (for now).

Big Easy looks lovely and creamy BUT the powder finish means dry patches really stand out

Overall Score 
 

The Good
Nice matte/powder finish

Good at controlling oil

Gives a nice, even complexion on initial application

The Bad

Expensive for a BB Cream

Clings to dry patches

Separates throughout the day

KaBOOM! Cosmetics gives Benefit Big Easy Multi-Balancing Complexion Perfector:

It really breaks my heart to give this such a low score but it really didn’t work for me at all. It’s the first time that I’ve been unimpressed by a Benefit product so I guess there’s always a silver lining. Have you tried Big Easy yet?

Stay beautiful!

Dani xx