I realise I’m going to be quite unpopular with the BB Cream-wearing crowd after this, but I can’t just sit by and nod and smile and pretend that I’m willing to be privy to the whole madness that is BB Cream, or CC Cream, or any other alphabet cream they choose to come up with. I know DD and even EE creams exist but that’s just nonsense if you ask me.
I have been sceptical about these seemingly all-in-one products for a long time, ever since I told you way back in the day that I didn’t want to talk about BB Creams. Where possible, I still don’t. Unlike many people, I have not been sold on the idea of BB Creams at all. Sure, I use them. But I use them as I would any other makeup, and I treat them as I would any other makeup i.e. It goes on only after my skincare and must be properly removed at the end of the day.
Despite what we are fed and led to believe, BB Creams are NOT skincare. BB Creams are NOT sunscreen and BB Creams are not a miracle skin perfecting product.
And this is my biggest beef with this seemingly miraculous product. I still stand by everything I said back in 2010 about BB Creams. I use them, and my BB Cream horizon has expanded and I even have some faves, but some recent revelations from people have surprised me so much that I’ve realised that BB Creams could actually be doing more harm than good to the general public. Naturally, you don’t have to agree with me 🙂 In fact, I’d like to hear your thoughts on this after I’ve had my say.
BB Creams are NOT skincare, they are makeup
I cannot stress this point enough. The statement put to me that bowled me over was when people asked if you could apply BB Cream at night, or if you can sleep in your BB Cream or better yet, whether you need to remove your BB Cream at all at the end of the day.
When asked why they thought the way they did, the answer that came back was “Because BB Cream is skincare, isn’t it?”
Fact is, it is not skincare, no matter how long the list of benefits to the skin it carries. The original concept behind BB Cream was to allow women to wear makeup post-laser treatments when their skin was thin and sensitive. A product that combined makeup (foundation) properties and a healthy dose of skin caring benefits was introduced. This was the BB Cream or Blemish Balm Cream. These days, BB can mean anything from Beauty Booster to Blithering Baloney.
This product does not replace your creams and moisturisers at all. By telling people that a BB Cream has 8-in1 or 10-in-1 benefits that includes whitening, hydrating, anti-aging, makeup etc is almost BS. In the same breath, we are advised to use only a small amount so it doesn’t look heavy on skin.
Now think about that for a minute. How on earth are you expected to derive any skincare benefits from a tiny dollop of cream? If you have believed this, and if you have been abandoning your normal skincare for BB Cream and if you are wondering why your skin is dehydrated and dull, herein lies your answer. You just aren’t doing things right. Ditch the BB Cream, go back to your skincare and moisturisers and creams and you’ll see much better results.
BB Creams do not offer sufficient sun protection
Another statement that has bowled me over is the use of BB Cream in place of a proper sunscreen product. This, I almost blame squarely on the brands who tout their SPF and UV protection properties in their BB Creams, leading people to believe that “Wow! Look, I can skip one step and save on sunscreen! Yay!”
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
High SPF only lulls consumers into a false sense of security. Again, the product may contain a high SPF factor, up to SPF50. But how much of a BB Cream do we put on our skin? A tiny bit. Remember? We are only supposed to use a thin layer so it doesn’t look fake and thick. So, how do you expect to get any or sufficient sun protection under our tropical sun, with just a thin layer of protection between your skin and the skin damaging UV rays?
You can’t.
So, the proper thing to do is to wear a separate sunscreen. Treat the SPF in the BB Cream as a bonus, if you must but it is definitely NOT a replacement for sunscreen, and definitely NOT sufficient for daily wear. I personally discount any reference to SPF in a makeup product. You just won’t use enough of it to be beneficial. If you really want an all in one product, get a tinted sunscreen instead. That is a sunscreen first, makeup second.
BB Creams must be removed at the end of the day
No brand tells you this, but BB Cream is makeup. My advise is to treat BB Creams as you would makeup, and get a proper makeup remover to remove it at the end of the day. This applies to any colour you put on your skin. No matter how beneficial it is, it is still makeup.
The problem I have when seeing BB Creams being pushed, is that the brands will extol the virtues of the skincare benefits and this confuses the customer into thinking that this product is a skincare item that can be left on the skin. Just take a look at the box of your BB Cream. The blurb is almost exactly what you’ll see on a box of face moisturiser. Some even tell you to “Use it as the last step of skincare”. Now if that’s not confusing, I don’t know what is! So, if its skincare, you don’t need a makeup remover right? Perhaps, just a quick wash with a regular face cleanser at the end of the day will do it?
Nope, that’s not the case.
I’ve personally found that the texture of BB Creams tend to sometimes be a bit heavier and oilier than regular foundation. It is also more sticky and sticks to skin. What this means is that the potential to clog pores is also higher. Also, not many people just wear a BB Cream and head out. They will likely pat on some powder or dab on some concealer… you get the picture. It is not skincare, ladies. Let’s wise up, yes? Use a proper makeup remover.
BB Cream is nothing but foundation
Ultimately, this is the take away of it all. A BB Cream is nothing more than a foundation. It could be sheer, medium or full coverage but the primary purpose many people wear BB Cream, if you ask them, is because they want their skin to look better and more eventoned. This is what foundation was designed to do. No one wears a BB Cream because “I am too lazy to use a proper moisturiser and sunscreen”.
When people tired of heavy foundations, along came tinted moisturisers, the pre-cursor to the BB Cream. But these days, foundation runs the gamut of textures from sheer to full coverage and everything in between. Many have included SPF and there are foundations that offer skin caring benefits as well.
Why not use something that has a targeted purpose instead of an all-in-one-master-of-none product?
I’m not saying don’t use a BB Cream. I’m saying, use one if you like but be aware as to what it is. Don’t believe all the miraculous all-in-one claims. Don’t wear it and then tell people you aren’t wearing makeup. You are. You have just been confused to the extent that you never realised it.
I don’t deny that I do use BB Cream (I just found one I like from Guerlain!) but I do not subscribe to the seemingly wonderful skincare benefits they tout. For me, a BB Cream is nothing but base makeup and I treat it accordingly. It goes on after my sunscreen, which is the last skincare product to go on my face. Some work for me beautifully, many don’t. But I think we’ve had enough. The Age of the BB Cream is past and brands should just go back to working on their foundations and making it better instead of churning out crowd-pleasing products, that are the alphabet creams.
Here’s what I’d like to see the brands do : Market a BB Cream as makeup. Scrap the CC Cream. Improve on foundation textures and benefits. Keep the skincare benefits of BB Creams secondary. Stop confusing the public. Our skin will thank you for it.
How much of a BB Cream’s claims do you believe?
None, in my case. I only measure how it works as foundation and discard all skincare/sunscreen benefits. I don’t expect anyone to agree with me on this. But if you’d like to share your views, please do. The soapbox is now yours 🙂
Paris B
I think it’s quite silly of the market to come up with CC DD and so on cream T.T like Clinique CC cream is more like a illuminating cream , no coverage and it’s completely a waste of money >..< still there are good ones out there like Lancome BB Complete which i'm in love with it ! It's completely breathable , lightweight and high in spf ! I do like the Revlon Photo-Ready BB cream , buildable coverage , oil-controlling and it gives me a natural matte finish and it's last me all day:) the La Roche Posay BB is also quite nice , instantly brightens up my complextion , super hydrating and fresh and quite decent coverage . I think BB cream is just another name for tinted moisturizer , same benefit and nothing much different.
You know what Leonard? I read that EE creams are already made. Crazy or what?! The Clinique CC Cream comes in 2 forms actually, the illuminating one and a tinted one. I just picked up a tinted one recently because I’d read so many raves for it 🙂 I have tried the Lancome BB Base from a few years ago and I’m not sure if its the same one. For me, my go to is the Diorsnow one that works very well for me. If it does something more than even out my skin colour, good for it 😛 I haven’t tried the La Roche Posay one but I’ve also read that the Vichy Idealia one isn’t bad either!
Of course they are not skincare, and needs to be removed as you would with foundations! I remember when it first came to Asia (HK) it was SO SO popular, like the way they do now here in London (so slow here!) and then people started mentioning the poor quality of their skin after they had used BB cream for awhile. The reason is OF COURSE because they just removed that with normal cleansing products, not one designed for foundations. Scary to think some people do that here now, yet they are still so excited about it. I hope everyone knows/understands that and just do the proper double cleanse with BB/CC/DD/EE……!!!
Oh Lord, the BB Cream craze was scary! Everyone was singing praises sky high for all the different Korean brands and I tried them but gave up on every single one because not one single one worked for me! I think some were really misleading too and in that regard, I do think the Western brands market theirs a little more carefully. They don’t quite say its makeup but they don’t try to hide it either. Asian brands on the other hand, you’d be hardpressed to realise its makeup from their glowing skincare benefits on the box!
None whatsoever.
Tried several samples when they first appeared in the,market – doesn’t work at all for me, and never bothered with it since.
Didn’t believe their over the top claims then and still don’t.
Straight and to the point! Good on ya Rudi 🙂
YES YES YES! I wear all my treatments under my BB or CC Creams, and extra sun protection on top! Marketing 😉
Wow! You put sun protection on top of BB/CC Creams? That’s hardcore, Jamilla! 😀
i use bb cream as foundation, not skincare. however, as a lazy person i sometime skip sunscreen if i am wearing a “high spf” bb cream, guess i didn’t care my skin enough. should be aware on that from now on.
Oops! Yeah, its better to use a separate sunscreen but I suppose if you don’t intend to use a sunscreen anyway then BB Cream should be better than nothing 😛
I have never regard my BB cream as good as skin care, but I think you have point out my mistake of considering BB cream as sufficient sunblock.
I would like to ask you or anyone here about using sunblock and primer concurrently. Is it advisable? And if so, am I right to say primer goes first under sunblock?
There was this Lioele saleslady who had told me that Lioele Secret Pore Rich Balm is good as skin care while acting like a primer and I do not need to wash it off. I believed her at first, but fortunately after I analysed its ingredients which seem to have a lot of silicones, I decided that she bluffed me.
I don’t see why you can’t use primer and sunblock at the same time. Quite often, people do. I would use primer over sunblock but that’s only because I regard primer as makeup and since my sunblock is my last step of skincare, next is primer. I think that makes the most sense 😛 Some sunblocks/sunscreens work as well as primer and that’s the primary reason I don’t use one. I don’t derive any benefit and primer can add to pore clogging. But its just the way I roll 🙂
I use regular sunscreen and tinted sunscreen daily but i think i am more fond of the idea of rhe regular sunscreen, since bb creams clog my pores and doesnt look good with my powder foundation, but since suncreen its suposed to be actively working 80 minutes it should be easier to re apply a powderfoundation with spf or a bb cream? I mean if you are not going to be playing outdoor sports or activity, its easier on the go and this spf on cosmetics comes in handy on daily basis if you truly want to re apoly and protect from uv rays at all times.
Technically, I’d assume too that it would be easier to reapply a cosmetic as opposed to a proper sunscreen but practically if you try to reapply a BB Cream, you’d just end up with a thick mask over your skin at the end of the day. The best way to reapply sunscreen is to clean off everything and reapply every 2 hours. Practically, it just can’t happen 😛
I opted for regular sunscreen, reapply powder foundation a light version, whitissimo pola worked fine but still its only 25 spf, works for me. Only when i am on a chemicall peel or playing tennis would re apply sunscreen hope it works!
i use BB Cream like makeup multi-tasker and i found the coverage and finish impressive, removal of makeup is necessary in getting skin fresh and clean without leaving any trace of makeup behind.
You’ve said it Girlie! I can’t imagine anyone not removing their makeup at the end of the day. Doesn’t their pillow get dirty? 😛
It’s never a skincare item for me. It’s a cross breed of a tinted moisturiser and a light/medium coverage foundation. Never a sunblock. I just don’t trust it to be a multi-tasker either.
Me neither! I think its great as a foundation substitute but as anything else? Hmm… jury is out on that one!
Thank you so much for your honest, truthful, and informative post about BB creams. 100% agree with you. Thanks for taking the time to write & post this. 🙂
Hi April, I’m glad you enjoyed this post! Someone had to say it I guess, no matter how unpopular it might be!
BB for me equal tinted moisturiser. The other benefits sound good, but no miracles have happened with the BB creams I have! I just like that a light coverage foundation is really easily available nowadays!
On the contrary, I’ve broken out more times from BB Creams than from just tinted moisturiser or foundation. Miracle? Erm no 😛
I do believe this was a necessary piece of article (yes! not post but article!). I do have a few bb cream of my own, and I’m going to buy myself a new one, Kiehls. But I always considered them as “tinted moisturizers” and treated them as one. I necessarily don’t use foundation anymore but I do mix them with me SPF product and use them. I’m going to buy Kiehls bb cream only because it doesn’t contain silicone and its coverage is good enough for summer but I always use a sunscreen underneath it.
Aww thank you Casey! I love that you thought of it as an article because I did too! (Its far too long to be merely a post haha!) I like the Kiehl’s BB Cream! I do hope you’ll like it too but I find the Kiehl’s one is more like a tinted sunscreen without being too oily like their regular sunscreen is. Not perfect either because you can’t use a lot of it but its nice over regular sunscreen.
Haha. I am still one of those who can’t find a Western BB that is as good as Korean ones, although I judge them on the same criteria. I have found foundations that perform as well though. This is the strange part.
Nothing wrong with that Jyoan! I’m just one of the strange birds who just can’t wear Korean BB Creams no matter how much I try 😛
Hi Paris
Wonderful post. Like u I treat bb cream as a foundation. It goes onto my skin after sunblock. Sometimes when I am lazy I skipped the sunblock which wrong. Thanks for the post, I shall not be lazy with the sunblock.
Hi Lavender, I’m glad you enjoyed this. I suppose wearing a BB Cream is better than not wearing any sunblock at all haha! But it would be wiser to have a layer on first But maybe that’s just me being a little paranoid 😉
You do have a lot to say about BB creams! 🙂 I am not a fan either. First time I tried it, squeezed out from tube and stared at it a long time… WTF (pls excuse my language)??! This is foundation, not moisturiser!! Upon applying to my face I didn’t quite like it as my foundation did better job than that. I remember it even made my eyebrows looked funny as it dried powdery on brow hair. You can scrap bits of the dried up stuff from brows. It’s just… strange and unpleasant. If I do use BB cream these days, I avoid eyebrow areas like plague.
In those times I did not have enough blog education but I knew that it should go on top of moisturiser like any good old foundation.
Nowadays the cosmetic companies are just abusing the word BB creams, trying to mis-lead consumers. Take L’Oreal for example. I remember seeing bloggers (possibly temptalia) commented that although the packaging says BB, there’s none of the functions of BB cream at all.
About doing harm… I guess if you don’t take it seriously by its claims, it’s an okay product but not one you absolutely must have. 🙂
Haha yes indeed I do. Too much of a view of anything 😛 I was very confused too by the concept and the first few ones I’d tried coming out of Korea were grey. I looked… grey. It was awful! And you’re right about the eyebrow thing. Its weird right? It was THAT pigmented! I didn’t see the point so I actually appreciate the Western versions which are more like a good tinted moisturiser or a light foundation. They get the colour right if not the concept 😉
AGREED! I did not buy all the marketing gimmick about how the bb cream has all the skincare benefits.
On a side note, do you touch up your sunscreen throughout the day? I find that I apply my makeup at 6:30am every morning then head to my morning class. By the time my class ends in the afternoon and I’m leaving school, my sunscreen would be gone already. What do I do? :/
Actually no, I don’t touch up. Its far too much hassle to have to wash off everything on my face and start again especially when I’m at work. On the upside, I’m in the office most of the time so my exposure is quite minimal in that sense. If you don’t wear makeup, then you could just wash off your sunscreen and reapply halfway through the morning. If you want to touch up, there are products like powder sunscreens that you can use over your existing sunscreen. I don’t do it out of practicality 😛
Hi Paris.I got my first BB cream from Sasa back in 2010.I knew of BB cream as a better make up than liquid foundation(Will make me appear to have better skin) and had no knowledge of the 8 in 1 benefits so I’ve always treated BB cream as a make up rather than sunscreen/moisturizer.I still use my bb cream but I always remove it at the end of the day before I go to bed.BB CREAM IS DEFINITELY A MAKE UP!It’s so shocking that ppl think of BB cream as some miracle cream,something that can replace toner,moisturizer,sunscreen?Now I really think the BB cream does more harm than good,giving people misconception in terms of what the product actually do?The fault is on the people too.If they’re unsure of whether they can sleep in BB cream,why not ask the Clinique/Estee Lauder/Benefit girl?I’m sure they will be happy to correct your misconceptions.
The problem, Christine, is that quite often, people are told by the SA about how wonderful the BB Cream is that they forget that it is makeup. I have heard of people who are told it’s ok to go to sleep in a BB or CC Cream. So, I think self education is important. Still, it’s a good thing you weren’t taken in by the claims 🙂
I actually put on as much foundation as sunscreen (teaspoonfull – and still looking natural), but I may be in the minority. Now that it’s summer I use separate sunscreen under, because BB creams don’t offer sufficient UVA-protection, mostly it’s UVB, but I plan to use only BB once winter comes.
I do agree with you that BB cream works as a foundation. I actually didn’t wear a foundation at first because i thought it was too heavy so i tried BB cream and I was lucky i found the one I like at the first trial (the Diorsnow one). Now I’ve tried some of the light to medium coverage foundations and I think some of the BB creams work just like them! Anyway, due to the psychological effect marketing has on me, I prefer BB cream over light coverage foundation, haha. But that doesn’t mean i don’t clean it after a long wearing day. I treat it as a make-up primer or light foundation, not skincare or sunscreen product. And more importantly, I like your review 😉
Ps. I want to ask about the color of the Diorsnow. Does the Diorsnow BB creme 010 has the same color as the Diorsnow BB creme light shade? I know the re-package the product but i don’t know if they change the formula or the color too?
Based on what I have, Diorsnow 010 is a tiny little bit lighter than Diorsnow Light BB Creme but for all intents and purposes, they look the same to me. I believe the formula was improved on. The new Diorsnow 010 one feels nicer on skin somehow 🙂
Lately, I have been wanting the dewy skin look I\’ve seen everywhere, and although my skin has many imperfections, I\’ve always found it too bothersome (and expensive) to wear makeup, especially when it\’s hot and I sweat. So I\’ve read all these wonders about BB and CC creams and I sincerely thought that maybe I could skip the sunscreen and moisturiser. And I thought it was a makeup hybrid, so it wouldn\’t be like wearing makeup and maybe it was reappliable like a sunscreen, so it was perfect for the warmer season. I was thinking it was so good because I didn\’t have to spend money on various products and just use a very good one-for-all. But because it was tinted, I was wondering if I needed makeup remover and stumbled upon this. Thanks so much, my doubts have been cleared up. I still want to use it, but now I\’m aware of what it is and what is it not. I was even wondering if I should use sunscreen underneath or over it, in case I wanted to still wear sunscreen. I know sunscreen comes before makeup, but now I\’m sure it comes before the BB cream too because it\’s makeup.After reading approx. ten \’articles\’ about BB\’s, CC\’s and DD\’s (and even more that I didn\’t bother to click on), there have been only two that keep making clear it is not skincare. So overall, I\’m grateful.