Sunscreen & Foundation In One? Ilia Super Skin Tint Review

Earlier this year ILIA rebranded their entiiiiire line and came out with a brand new base product: the Ilia Super Skin Tint. Ilia claims it to be a revolutionary, one of its kind, skincare + sunscreen + makeup product, which we shall evaluate as we get into this post 👀 I received shades 10 and 11 in a PR mailer and have been testing them out for the past two weeks sooo without further ado, here are my thoughts on them!

Price & Availability

$46.00 for 1 fl oz via Sephora, Bloomingdale’s, Space NK, Credo, & the Detox Market

Ingredients

Active Ingredients: 12% zinc oxide

Inactive ingredients: aqua/water/eau, squalane*, polyglyceryl-3 ricinoleate, butyloctyl salicylate, propanediol, shea butter ethyl esters, isoamyl laurate*, isopropyl isostearate, polyglyceryl-3 diisostearate, methylpropanediol, niacinamide, sodium chloride, lecithin, caprylyl glycol, silica, aloe barbadensis leaf juice powder, bisabolol, hydrolyzed sodium hyaluronate, allantoin, phenylpropanol, sodium myristoyl glutamate, sodium hyaluronate, tetrasodium glutamate diacetate, aluminum hydroxide, polyhydroxystearic acid

May contain (depending on the shade): ci 77491, ci 77492, ci 77499 (iron oxides), ci 77891 (titanium dioxide). The Detox Market has the specific pigments for each shade on their site.

Packaging

It comes in a glass bottle with a dropper. I’ve popped it into my makeup bag a couple of days and didn’t face any spillage issues.

Shade Range

Here we are again in this tricky shade issue when a foundation doesn’t come out in too many shades. First off, I think the shades are lighter IRL than they appear online. The droppers on the bottle are color coordinated but the actual skin tints are lighter than the color coordinated dropper, at least the two shades I tried. Without a doubt, the shade range skews towards the lighter range, contrary to what the online swatches depict.

When it comes to shades range, I think it’s the distribution rather than the number of shades which is most important. Aaaand this ain’t a well distributed shade range. I do think the lighter shades have a nice variety of undertones, but it came at the expense of a more seamless transition between medium/ dark shades.

I’ve attached the shade range photo from the Ilia site, but I think they swatch lighter in person.

SPF?

A question I got asked a few times on Instagram was, “can I wear this Ilia super skin tint instead of sunscreen?” From the get go, I will say I consider makeup and sunscreen to be two separate categories.

Per the Ilia site, the Super Skin Tint protects the skin from from UVA, UVB, UVC, blue light, and infrared light. From Chemist Confessions post on this, the UVC, blue light, and infrared light protection is kind of meaningless (read their post to find out more.)

If you peeked at the ingredients list, you’ll see that it contains 12% zinc oxide which does protect against UVA and UVB rays. I’ve seen a few people speculate that 12% zinc oxide cannot provide a SPF 40 level of protection… but the percentage of zinc oxide does not indicate more or less sun protection. It’s the overall formulation that determines the amount of sun protection (Josh Rosebrook has a post about this.)

ALLLL that said, I would not rely on this for sole sun protection. Ilia recommends using 1/4 dropper of the Super Skin Tint to get enough product to get SPF 40 level of protection. I’m not going to analyze that in comparison to the recommended 1/2 tsp sunscreen recommendation for face and neck cause I’m not a dermatologist/ chemist.

However, I do have two other problems with this. 1, you cannot tell how much 1/4 of a dropper is cause it’s covered in product. 2, 1/4 a dropper is more product that most people would use. For science, I wiped down the dropper with a makeup wipe to see how 1/4 would be and applied that much. It ended up feeling heavier than I liked.

Just like with any other tinted moisturizer or foundation that contains SPF, I’ll consider this a nice, little “extra” sun protection but will not rely on it as my sole sun protection. Also, PLEASE DO NOT MIX THIS INTO YOUR SUNSCREEN. Mixing other products into your sunscreen, or mixing sunscreens with each other, screws around with the protection. Michelle at Lab Muffin has a video all about this! Basically, layer, don’t mix.

Scent

As it’s free of synthetic fragrance and essential oils, it doesn’t really smell like much.

Texture

It’s thin and runny, but I can feel the sunscreen in it, if that makes sense. If you’ve ever used a foundation mixer or a liquidy mineral sunscreen, it has a consistency reminiscent of that.

Application

As with every other base product I’ve ever used, I tried three methods of applications: fingers, beautyblender, and foundation brush. My least favorite method was with my fingers. I found that with my fingers, I would just be spreading the Super Skin Tint around the surface of my skin, and it ended up looking really streaky. Unless I applied the teeniest bit, I would have to go in with a sponge or brush for the finishing touches.

With a sponge, it applied really nicely— albeit it did sheer it out quite a bit. I think because the Super Skin Tint texture is so liquidy, the sponge ends up eating up more of the product. That said, I think the combination of sponge + tint leaves a beautiful, skin like, dewy finish. It was also harder to build up coverage with the sponge because it does eat up the product.

My favorite way of application is definitely with a dense, foundation brush. Because it’s so thin, it spreads so easily but I’m also able to maintain a higher level of coverage because the brush doesn’t suck up as much product as a wet sponge.

How Does It Wear

First off, it the finish is very skin-like and dewy. Even though I said you can feel the sunscreen-y texture of this tint, it still feels pretty light on the skin. The coverage is light to medium (as previously mentioned, it’s easier to build up with a brush vs sponge.)

I would say it wears reasonably well throughout the day, depending on how my skin is doing. The weather is still pretty dry around here, so my skin is varying degrees of dehydrated. On days where I didn’t fully prime my skin, I noticed the Super Skin Tint would cling to dry patches and start separating. But with a hydrating primer (my go to has been the First Aid Beauty Ultra Repair Hydrating Primer— also PR), I don’t face these issues.

I wouldn’t say the coverage lasts alll day long. After about the 8 hour mark, I notice my acne scarring starts peeking through more. It does fade seamlessly, though. With some other foundations, they go really patchy once they start fading. This has a homogenous fade.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I like this as a day to day base product. It’s easy to apply with a brush, feels really lightweight on my skin, and provides a natural, dewy looking finish. It doesn’t last the longest, but it lasts long enough. My biggest negative about this launch is the poor distribution of shades on the medium/ dark end of the range.