I Haven’t Worn Foundation in Months Thanks to This Magic Color Corrector
For the last few months there’s only been one thing I talk about with anyone who will listen. It’s the Dr. Jart+ Cicapair Tiger Grass Color Correcting Treatment, and I haven’t worn foundation since I started using it.
This, as the headline implies, is fantastic, especially because I hate that feeling of foundation on my face after a long day. Most days, as soon as I walk through the door of my apartment, all I can think about is washing it off my face. As much as I love makeup, I just don’t want to feel it on my skin. Sadly, I’m never really impressed by BB creams and CC creams that promise to feel light and blur all my redness. So what really caught my eye with this color corrector was its star ingredient—tiger grass.
Tiger grass or cica or Centella asiatica (it has a lot of names) has serious healing properties. “Centella asiatica is an herb found in Asia that has been used in Eastern Medicine for various health benefits,” says Joshua Zeichner, M.D., director of cosmetic and clinical research in dermatology at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City. “It’s rich in saponins, which are like nature’s anti-inflammatories and have been shown to calm irritated skin and aid in wound healing.” And not just in humans—tigers in India actually roll around in the grass there to use it to heal their wounds (hence the name tiger grass). So yeah, I’ve been rubbing the same thing tigers use to recover after their tiger battles all over my face. It’s weird but effective.
The tiger grass can aid with cell growth (so your skin renews itself faster), and it’s filled with chlorophyll (the green stuff found in plant cells), which forms a protective barrier for your skin. Zeichner says it can help treat conditions like rosacea, eczema, sensitive skin, and acne. It must work, because people keep telling me how great my skin looks.
Of course, as a normal human being, I do still get redness and my skin tone is still uneven in certain places, so I could use a little extra help. As luck would have it, this little jar of magic is also a color corrector. Its subtle green tint, which turns more of a light beige when it sets, cancels out redness and matches my skin tone perfectly when I blend it in. Like I said, magic—which could by why the Dr. Jart+ Cicapair Tiger Grass Color Correcting Treatment keeps popping up all over TikTok, where people are singing its praises.
Given that it uses a beige cast to cancel out redness, it’s best suited for fair and light skin tones. But I’ve also seen TikTok-ers with medium skin use it as a color-correcting base with their foundation on top to lots of fanfare.
As you can see from the videos above, a lot of people have pointed out that its magic shines when you warm up the cream in your hands first, then rub it on your face. But because I’m pretty pale, it starts to do its thing as soon as I massage it in—and after a few seconds it disappears, leaving my skin looking natural but not airbrushed (because I don’t want to look like I have a permanent filter on my face‚. You can still see all my freckles, and there’s definitely still the odd blemish that I’ll dab some concealer on. But otherwise my skin looks pretty damn good. Definitely good enough to stop wearing foundation.
It works as a primer for the rest of my makeup, which is typically just a little concealer, some blush, and maybe some highlighter along with my eye makeup and lipstick. And by the end of the day, I don’t get that awful makeup meltdown because my main source of coverage is just skin care.
I also love that this cream is actually improving my skin rather than trying to counteract all the clogged pores and blemishes makeup can cause. I don’t feel like I have to cake my face up anymore, which saves me a ton of time in the morning and plenty of anxiety. And when I do want a little extra coverage—lately when I'm taking photos for something at work, or for an important Zoom meeting—I’ll apply some foundation, but only because I want to. Not because I feel like I have to.
Dr. Jart+ Cicapair Tiger Grass Color Correcting Treatment SPF 30
$52.00, Dr. Jart+
Erin Reimel is a beauty writer living in Pennsylvania. Follow her on Instagram @erin_reimel.
Originally Appeared on Glamour
