Can the Sephora Foundation Finder REALLY Find My Right Foundation Shades?

So Sephora.com has a relatively new Foundation Finder feature on their site that helps you figure out your foundation shade among the varying brands. While technology like this hasn’t really been overwhelmingly great for us in the past, I figured let me give it a whirl for Ss and Gs.

See more on these shades here

Now because I get a ton of foundations in by virtue of having this blog and my Youtube channel, I already know what my shade is among almost all the brands that carry deeper shades at Sephora. But there are some new shades among existing lines (i.e. Tom Ford, etc.) and some new brands altogether (i.e. Kosas) that I decided to make life easier on myself and figure out my shade online rather than sashay into Sephora and figure it out in person.

As I’ve said many, many, MANY times in previous foundation posts, there is no universal shade range in the beauty industry. A dark brown with neutral undertones can look one way in brand A, another at brand B, and a whole other way at brand C. When brands make foundation shades, they mix a number of primary colors (and sometimes also add in black or white to change the depth), so some might get heavy-handed with the yellow, some might be stingy with the red, etc, etc. Get what I’m saying?

So basically I’m saying, you might not get the exact shade when you try the Sephora shade finder. In fact, it’ll tell you if the shade is exact or if it’s your closest match. Some formulas, particularly those that are lighter in coverage, can work on many people—you know, like tinted moisturizers and lightweight foundations. The fuller the coverage though, the more apparent undertones are and you won’t be as lucky as to find flexible shades.

But let’s give this thing a whirl with my known foundation shades.

So out of all the foundations I’ve tried that are sold at Sephora, I would say Cover FX N110, Dior Face and Body 6.5N, and beautyblender 4.40N are my best matches. See the other shades I wear in foundation here and in concealer here.

Since Fenty launched shade 445, I also now have a match in that line as well, but as I mentioned in my follow-up video, it’s a little too matte than I like for me in the winter (watch here to find my work around).

For quick reference, here are some quick video demos so you can see what the shades look like on my skin. There’s no sound on these so feel free to play from almost anywhere.

DIOR Backstage Face & Body + YSL Blur Primer from Danielle Gray on Vimeo.

Fenty 445 Demo from Danielle Gray on Vimeo.

beautyblender 4.40N Foundation Demo from Danielle Gray on Vimeo.

Dior Forever (Matte) Demo from Danielle Gray on Vimeo.

I couldn’t find a video demo with me using Cover FX N110 (most of my recent makeup videos, I already started the video with my foundation on), but trust me, it matches…lol. You can see an old video of me using it here.

Fenty Beauty

When I put in Cover FX N110 and then subsequently Dior Face and Body 6.5N, it gave me this…

Then I put in beautyblender 4.40N and it gave me this as my exact match…

My true shade is 445. Let’s say technology was NOT on my side here…lol.

Cover FX

So I decided to try the reverse and see what I’d get.

I put in Fenty 445 and got this…

That’s soooo off :x

I put in Dior 6.5 N and got this…

Again, off. Although when I tan, I get redder in undertone and can wear P110. Also, the Dior 6.5N does have a bit more red in it than my other foundations that also have neutral undertones, so I can see why the tech picked the P-range from Cover FX.

I put in beautyblender 4.40N and got this…

WOW I use P125 to CONTOUR…LOL.

I think I’ve seen enough here.

In conclusion…

I appreciate the technology being there, but phew lawd it’s gonna have people looking like their heads are floating away from their necks. If I had to guess why the shades suggested were off, I’d guess that perhaps the technology is measuring some factor like color composition, but foundations shades can look different in color for a number of reasons including the water content in the formula. This also goes back to my “there is no universal shade range for foundations in the beauty industry” point. If I were to swatch all of my foundations that match me next to each other, they’d look like different colors even though they all match my skin.

Dior Face & Body | Fenty Pro Fil’tr | Dior Skin-Caring Matte | Covergirl Matte Ambition | Cover FX Power Play | beautyblender Bounce | Cover FX Total Cover Cream

Even in these swatches of shades that match me, they look different from each other. I’m a chocolate brown with neutral undertones—I have just about as much yellow in my undertones as I do red. I typically reach for foundations that have neutral undertones, but I can take some that have a little red in them (as the Dior foundations tend to do). In the swatches above, you see three Cover FX foundation formulas all in shade N110 and they look different from each other—this is pretty common among the same brand with different formulations. Things like water content in the formula have an effect on how the shades swatch. But also, as I’ve explained in my Why One Foundation Won’t Cut it for Women of Color post, we’re multi-hued–which is why highlighting and contouring helps to give us a more like-our-skin look. Which brings me to my next guess as to why the technology would show such off shades.

Another factor is that as people of color, we’re not all one uniform color from head to toe. A lot of us have two tones in our face alone (typically lighter in the center of the face and darker around the perimeter). Some of us may match our foundation to the color apparent in the center of our faces and then highlight/contour or simply warm the perimeter to balance. Some of us may match our foundation to the color apparent along the perimeter of our faces and then highlight to balance. Our multitude of skin tones I feel are way more complicated than technology (or at least the technology used for Sephora’s shade finder) can detect. Now, I am also not a techie so I have no clue what kind of highfalutin tech is out there that can really detect the nuances in richer skin tones but these shade reads and my common sense tell me this Sephora tech might need a little bit of help.

It’s not a step in the wrong direction though. You can use it to pre-shop and narrow down the options before heading in store to try things out in person. And if you don’t live near a Sephora, at least you can return what doesn’t work within their return guidelines.

Have you tried Sephora’s Shade Finder? Did it work? Tell me all about it in the comments!