THE BEST DRUGSTORE BB CREAM!!

106 contenders, 1 winner!!

And the best drugstore BB cream is Maybelline Dream Fresh BB 8-in-1 Beauty Balm Skin Perfector.

The big buzzword with BB creams is “buildable” and the Maybelline Dream Fresh BB is just that. It goes on sheer and feels lightweight, but can easily be built up to a fuller coverage. (That said, if you’re looking to cover up blemishes or get a fuller coverage, skip this one. You can layer it on, but only to a point. While it is buildable, it still doesn’t have the amount of pigment found in heavier BBs, or the amount you’d find in a concealer or traditional foundation. An especially pesky blemish will need extra help in the cover-up department.)

 It goes on sheer and feels lightweight, but can easily be built up to a fuller coverage.

A lot of thick makeup products can feel heavy — sticky or uncomfortably “noticeable” on the skin — but even several layers of the Maybelline feel like nothing. And it’s durable too. Other BBs started to inexplicably dissipate or rub off, but Maybelline’s Dream Fresh lasted without reapplication on a 12-plus-hour day.

Maybelline’s Dream Fresh lasts without reapplication on a 12-plus-hour day.

Dream Fresh goes on smooth and quickly dries down to be mostly matte, with just the tiniest hint of sheen, which looks and feels pretty natural. The oil-free and fragrance-free formulation means it’s non-irritating (though in truth it has the tiniest bit of makeup-y scent). It also offers SPF 30 sun protection from a titanium dioxide physical sunscreen, and while you’ll likely never slather on enough for dermatologist-approved sun safety, it’s a good bonus to your daily SPF application. Plus, it has antioxidant-rich pomegranate extract to help prevent future skin damage and aloe leaf extract to soothe and moisturize.

It goes on smooth and quickly dries down to be mostly matte.

The product comes in five shades, from a very pale “light” to a much darker shade called “deep” — all with golden or neutral undertones, as opposed to more pink hues. And while five shades isn’t the widest selection, the Dream Fresh lineup at least encompasses a wider variety of skin tones than other brands that cater only to middle-of-the-range skin colors.

If Maybelline's Dream Fresh BB cream does not work out for you, try out these tips to find the ideal shade for you:

Know your undertones. Are you light with cool undertones? Dark with neutral undertones? Take online quizzes; read up; and spend a good long time looking in the mirror. The general consensus is that if you tan more often than you burn, you most likely have warm, or golden, undertones and if you burn more than you tan, you are likely to have less melanin in your skin and therefore have cool undertones. Another trick people use is to look at the veins on their wrists. If they appear blue or purple, you’re probably on the cool side of the spectrum; if they’re greenish, you’re more warm-toned. If you have neutral undertones, you’ll have a harder time discerning. Note: Our tester found that her veins looked blue, but she has neutral to warm undertones, so it’s not an exact science! These tricks can’t guarantee a perfect match, but they’ll get you closer.

Test it on your own skin. We spent hours trying to match skin color to online swatches and swipes and to make intelligent guesses at the shade based on other brands that were a good match. Some of this worked, but some of it definitely did not. To get a good match, you’re going to have to test each brand on your own skin. Pro tip: Be sure to go outside into some natural light before making your final decision. Some bad purchases were made based on matches found under misleading lights.

This research has been conducted by the team at Reviews.com To read in detail how the research was conducted, click here.

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