Why Is It So Hard To Find A Fenty Foundation Shade?

You’ve probably heard about it by now. (If you haven’t where have you been hiding?) I’m talking about the Fenty Beauty Pro Filt’r Soft Matte Longwear Foundation.

It was the foundation that rocked the beauty industry and rightfully so. It launched with a record 40 shades with most of them shades for all tones of brown skin.

Additionally, this foundation looked to be perfect for oily skin like mine.

• It’s a soft matte
• It claims to give skin an instantly smooth, pore-diffused, shine-free finish
• It’s supposed to be resistant to sweat and humidity
• It also says to be long-wearing and feel light-as-air

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I’ve got oily skin so all of these claims got my attention. So after hearing about this foundation, I went down to one of my local Sephoras to get shade matched and get some samples.

A beauty expert or whatever they’re called swatched several of the shades of the Fenty Beauty Pro Filt’r Soft Matte Longwear Foundation in the 400 range on my face. Some looked too light and some too dark. The conclusion was shade 430 was my shade. The kicker was it was pretty much the same shade everyone else in my town seemed to be as well because that shade was plum sold out. There wasn’t a sample to swatch with or a new bottle to buy.

This was the situation for several weeks. While I could have eventually bought the shade online I really wanted to get a sample to try it out before spending $34 on a bottle. I hadn’t spent that much on one foundation ever. After going to my Sephora several times with no luck, I gave up on trying the Fenty Soft Matte foundation. It wasn’t meant to be.

Fast forward to almost two years and 10 extra shades later the Fenty mania has died down enough that the Sephora stores near me are able to keep ample stock of all of the shades. Plus, I was still curious. So I decided to see if I could finally get my long-awaited sample. I was able to. In fact, over several trips, I got samples of 420 and 430.

420 was too light. So 430 had to be it. 430 is meant for deep skin with warm golden undertones. That’s describing me. Every other foundation I’ve worn so far is for deep skin with golden undertones. How could it not work?

I tried the shade I’d been waiting to get my hands on for months. This was finally it. I applied it, looked in the mirror. It looked slightly too light, slightly orange, and just overall not quite right which was disappointing and also confusing. Maybe it was because it was the beginning of the summer and I had started getting a little darker? 

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I really wanted the Fenty Beauty Pro Filt’r Soft Matte Longwear Foundation to be my foundation. While the 430 shade wasn’t quite right for me I did wear it for a couple of days. I have to say I fell in love.

The Fenty matte foundation felt so lightweight on my skin I would sometimes forget that I had foundation on. It helped to control my oily skin to the point I didn’t need to blot most days or just once on more oily days versus the three-plus times I was blotting with other foundations. It also has a natural look so it didn’t look like I was wearing foundation.

Because I liked the look and feel of the foundation and I got some compliments when wearing it I was determined to find my shade. I mean at this point there were 50 shades as a few new ones had launched so there had to be one for me. Right?

I spent some time on the Fenty Beauty site using the shade finder and it matched me with 440. I got a sample from the store that lasted me about three days and the shade looked good on me. I was sold and bought a full-sized bottle online.

After a couple of days of using my new Fenty 440 foundation, I noticed the foundation was making me look orange and started to look off. Ugh. Here we go again.

I’m not sure what happened from my trying out the sample to using my full-sized bottle. Back to Sephora, I went to get a sample of 445 one of the new shades for warm olive undertones. I don’t consider myself to have olive undertones but after watching several videos of others with golden undertones struggling to find their shade and finding some hope with 445 I decided to try it. No good. It made parts of my face look slightly green.

At this point, I didn’t know what to do. So I made 440 work. I wasn’t in love with how it looked anymore but I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away.

The next time I was in Sephora to get shade matched for another foundation I wanted to try I thought I’d ask to also get shade matched again for Fenty. I regretted that. I was shade matched to 480!

I don’t know what the girl in the store was thinking. My skin tone is obviously not that deep and she even told me, which I knew, that it dries down darker. You can see how deep 480 looks in the picture below.

I ignored her shade match and got a sample of 450. I was skeptical because I saw in some YouTube reviews that has a red undertone but after my first try of the sample, it looked awesome. I immediately bought a bottle.

I probably should have been more cautious because after a couple of days that shade started to look really red on me. So now I’m mixing the 440 and 450 shades. I haven’t figured out the best level of each in the mixture but so far mixing the two shades is what’s been consistently working for me.

So until I run out I will continue to wear the Fenty Beauty Pro Filt’r Soft Matte Longwear Foundation by mixing the 440 and 450 shades.