We’re back with the next two matches in the concealer tournament! If you missed the first two matches, I started with 16 concealers I’ve been testing, some for years and some much more recently. As always, I’m happy to do follow ups with anything I didn’t include here or anything that’s launched since that you’re super curious about! Important reference for concealers – I have dry 35+ year old skin that has fine lines. If you have oily skin, you might love the ones that lose specifically because they don’t work as well on my dry skin.
For the actual tests, I wore one concealer on each side of my face, both under my eyes, to spot conceal, and as foundation on different days. I kept the rest of my makeup the same. I also switched sides just in case. I’ve also been posting (way too) close up pictures in my Substack chat and having everyone vote on which side looks better without telling them what they’re looking at.
In this post, all links are affiliate links (thank you for your support!), but all opinions are my own and I bought all these products myself. Swatches are under a ring light to show true to color (photo #1) and then standard lighting to show the formula a little better (#2) for all the products.
And here’s where we are in the bracket:
Round 1, Match 3: Vieve Modern Radiance Concealer in Light 1 vs. Haus Labs Triclone Skin Tech Concealer in 02 Fair Golden – I’ve liked the Vieve concealer since I tested it and the Haus Labs was new to me so I really thought the Vieve would sail right on through. Shade wise, the Haus Labs is lighter and brighter on me, while Vieve Light 1 is a little peachier. They both work when they’re blended out. The Haus Labs shade is labeled as being for olive undertones, but I’d say it’s just more golden (though better than a lot of other concealer shades).
When I applied them, the thing that really stood out to me was that the Vieve stretches way more. It’s really easy to blend and looks a lot more skinlike, so if you like using your concealer all over as foundation (which I do!), it works really well for that. The Haus Labs doesn’t want to stretch nearly as much especially if you let it dry a little bit before blending. But that also means it has noticeably more coverage that really sticks around.
At the end of the day, the Vieve wore away much more, and I was left with a lot less coverage than I would have liked. The Haus Labs still had noticeably more coverage and also creased less. My substack chat was pretty evenly split on this one both times I posted this match up, but my husband voted for Haus Labs every time I asked.
A short detour before I call a winner of this match – the new Vieve Skin Nova Concealer in 125 Light Neutral Olive showed up a couple days ago, so obviously I immediately put that against Haus Labs too. I’m not putting it into the official bracket after a couple days of testing because that wouldn’t be fair to the very heavily tested concealers, but I needed to see what happened so here we are.
First of all, 125 is a better shade match for me than the original Vieve concealer. It’s definitely the most olive of the three of these in person, although in the swatches you can see it’s pretty close to the Haus Labs. Putting them next to each other makes the old Vieve Light 1 look straight up pinky peach, which is kind of nuts given how much I’ve loved it. The new formula is a little thinner and stretchier than the old one, and it looks even more skinlike. It reminds me a lot of the Givenchy concealer in that you can almost use it like a lightweight skin tint with just a little bit of product. It also builds much better than I was expecting. I can get it to around medium coverage just adding one more layer, and it doesn’t look too heavy.
I managed to test it against the Haus Labs two days (so I could switch sides once), and both times the Haus Labs managed to keep more coverage and wear better, just like with the original Vieve concealer. My husband also picked the Haus Labs every time once again.
I actually think the Skin Nova is prettier if what you want is something really thin and skinlike that you can just kind of throw all over your face, and between the two Vieve concealers, I’d absolutely pick the new one. But I’m confident that the Haus Labs should move on in the bracket!
Round 1, Match 4: Estee Lauder Double Wear Stay-in-Place Concealer in 1N vs. About Face The Illusionist Skin-Focused Concealer in L1 Warm Olive – This is another battle where it was a concealer I’ve liked for awhile (Estee Lauder) vs one I bought specifically to test because it was an olive shade (About Face). I really thought the About Face was going to pleasantly surprise me. But it turns out the About Face really stands out against my skin even though it’s for olives, and the Estee Lauder looks way more olive on me despite being labeled neutral. It was actually hard to show this in the swatches because the Estee Lauder blends into my skin and then my phone turns everything pink.
The Estee Lauder manages to both have great coverage and blend out really easily and far. It also sets down by itself but also does well with powder. The About Face has a super pretty finish but the thing that really stood out to me about it was that it loses quite a bit of coverage as you blend it out and it doesn’t build up that well. The first time I tested these against each other, my chat mostly picked About Face despite the less coverage. The Estee Lauder looked a little less skinlike at first (so I wasn’t surprised by the chat vote), but once they’d both been sitting on my face for a while, they looked much closer and the Estee Lauder kept much more coverage. When I switched sides, everyone, including my husband, picked Estee Lauder.
By the end of the day, Estee Lauder looked pretty great coverage-wise but also had creased less. The About Face doesn’t look bad by itself at all (and if it’s your favorite, keep on using it!), but every time I compared them side by side, I preferred the Estee Lauder, so Estee Lauder moves on!
Next up is Givenchy vs. Sarah Creal and Rare Beauty vs. Essence!
Makeup and Skincare Reviews 