Welcome to Deep Reviews—your one-stop destination to discover the absolute best products and brands the beauty industry has to offer. The Who What Wear staffers you already know and trust will research, test, and review the market’s most sought-after and buzzed-about products to see which formulas (of the hundreds up for consideration) are truly worth your hard-earned money and attention. You can expect honest, completely uncensored feedback and no-BS recommendations our hard-to-please testers endorse without reservations.
The majority of our Deep Reviews will feature our editors’ honest, ultra-hot takes on entire product categories or multiple products from a particular beauty brand, but every so often, we’ll sprinkle in a special single-product format called Honestly, I Love It. As the name suggests, these reviews will hone in on one standout beauty formula our editors quite literally can’t shut up about. This time around, I’m highlighting the Lancôme Care & Glow Serum Concealer ($29).
For the majority of my life, I have firmly been a concealer only type of person. I wear foundation here and there for special occasions, but most of the time, I’m putting dots of concealer on my face. No, it’s not because I have perfect skin—I have a face full of freckles, and I like to let them shine as much as possible. For that reason, I need concealers to do the most: look like skin, be crease-free, blend seamlessly, have a radiant finish, and match my skin tone to a T.
Needless to say, most concealers don’t fit the bill. In fact, I rarely take my chances on new concealer—I’ve been a die-hard fan of Glossier’s Stretch Concealer for years. When I learned about Lancôme’s new Care & Glow Serum Concealer, however, I decided to take a chance and try it out, particularly after talking to Lancôme’s national makeup artist, Sheika Daleyas.
“It’s a beautiful combination of skin care and [concealer] in one,” says Daleyas. “It has amazing coverage but delivers a really beautiful skin-like effect.” Daleyas says the Care & Glow Serum Concealer is ideal for spot-concealing and also leaves you with a glowy, radiant finish.
What really intrigued me about the Lancôme Care & Glow Serum Concealer, however, was the fact that it’s formulated with an 81 percent serum base. It has hyaluronic acid to hydrate and ceramides and peptides to protect.
According to Daleyas, the serum component makes all the difference, particularly in the finish. “Sometimes concealers have great coverage but they tend to dry down to a really matte finish, which is great for an all-over matte look, but for those that want that glow all over but still want the full coverage, the combination of the two is just amazing,” she says. “Over time with continual use, the serum in the product helps to diminish fine lines and wrinkles and the appearance of dark circles as well.”
The concealer really does blend like a serum. I’ve been applying dots of it to dark circles and any spots I want covered, and using my fingers to pat it in (which Daleyas recommends).
This concealer melts right into skin, and almost completely vanishes—unlike so many other concealers, it perfectly mimics my skin texture, and doesn’t look like I have any product on over my skin. The finish is radiant, but not too shiny. And the color—it’s a perfect match, which is impressive considering the range is only 24 shades.
“It’s really hard to try and have a perfect shade for everyone within a range of say 30 colors,” Daleyas says. “But we really spent a lot of time trying to make sure that everyone would be able to be included in the color range and no one was left out. It’s really important to me that whatever I’m working on I can use on myself, my friends, my family, and my clients. I feel like we really did a good job at doing that in this collection.”
Since I’ve started using the Lancôme Care & Glow Serum Concealer, I’ve rarely reached for any other concealers. It fits seamlessly into my makeup routine and earns me a slew of “your skin looks amazing” compliments.
My favorite thing about this concealer is how well it mimics my skin—often, even the best concealers still look like concealer sitting on top of your skin. Thanks to this one’s serum base, however, it looks more like an eighth layer of skin than a layer of concealer. This product sits squarely in the rare intersection of being perfect for both makeup buffs and for people who want to look like they have no makeup on.
