Etude House Beauty Shot Face Blur Review, Swatches and Ingredients Analysis

Friday, April 17, 2015

Etude House's Beauty Shot Face Blur is the latest base makeup product from Etude House, and while it's not quite new to Singapore, having been launched about a month or so ago, I figure better late than never! The Face Blur functions sort of like a cross between a primer and a sort of light foundation, and according to the Etude House English website it is a "lightweight cream" with "multi-blurring effects for instantly refined and smooth skin" for a "3-in-1 multi filter effect like adjusting light on skin". It even has SPF15/PA+ sun protection to boot! Sounds great, huh?

Etude House Beauty Shot Face Blur: The latest makeup base product from Etude House

The Etude House Beauty Shot Face Blur is supposed to give your skin a perfect finish and instantly make your skin "selfie ready" - I suppose given that "selfie" was named Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year in 2013, I guess there's no better way to market a product! Of course, in Asia, base makeup is always important - all sorts of base makeup like BB creams, BB cushions, and the like sell very well here. I'm totally expecting this to do well here!

Etude House Beauty Shot Face Blur Bottle
Etude House Beauty Shot Face Blur: Make your skin "selfie" ready!

Anyway, I know you're wondering - how does this differ from all the other primers out there? And does it really cover pores, perfect skin, and so on? Well you're in luck! We're just about to start on a little nerdy ingredients analysis of the product, before going on to swatches and a demonstration!

Let's start off with the ingredients list. I thought it might be a great place to start, because the Etude House English website also claims that "unlike other primeres including silicone gel, it is made of 'Airy Skin Powder' to give lightweight and comfortable wear for long time." "Airy Skin Powder" sounds kind of vague to me, so I thought it would be good for us to take a look at the ingredients to find out more!

Etude House Beauty Shot Face Blur Ingredients
Etude House Beauty Shot Face Blur Ingredients: Silicones, primers, humectants, and emollients form the bulk of the product.

I know, I know. White text on a light grey background is super hard to photograph. So to make it up for you, I've actually replicated the ingredients, below:


The product, as a primer product, unexpectedly has a bunch of silicones and polymers (Cyclopentasiloxane, Cyclohexasiloxane, Peg-10 Dimethicone, Phenyl Trimethicone, Dimethicone, Dimethicone/Vinyl Dimethicone Crosspolymer, Vinyl Dimethicone/Methicone Silsesquioxane Crosspolymer, Hdi/Trimethylol Hexyllactone Crosspolymer). These serve serve various functions - most of them (Peg-10 Dimethicone, Dimethicone, Dimethicone/Vinyl Dimethicone Crosspolymer, Dimethicone/Vinyl Dimethicone Crosspolymer) have emollient benefits to the skin and also provide the product with a nice "slip" on the skin, while some (Cyclopentasiloxane, Cyclohexasiloxane) evaporate after dispersing the product evenly, and others (Vinyl Dimethicone/Methicone Silsesquioxane Crosspolymer, Hdi/Trimethylol Hexyllactone Crosspolymer) have are functional ingredients, like thickeners and anti-caking agents. There's also Silica, which is a thickener, as well as an oil-absorbing agent.

I'm not too sure what "Airy Skin Powder" is, and the product is certainly composed primarily of silicones despite the marketing blurb, I'm guessing that "Airy Skin Powder" in this case refers to the fact that some of the silicones, such as Vinyl Dimethicone/Methicone Silsesquioxane Crosspolymer, and HDI/Trimethylol Hexyllactone Crosspolymer, and silicacan be bought from specialty chemical companies in powder form, and these powders do give a nice finish on the skin when applied.

Etude House Beauty Shot Face Blur Pump
Etude House Beauty Shot Face Blur: Formulated to be a good primer product, with lightweight finish and moisturizing benefits

Other than the silicones, polymers, and silica, the Etude House Beauty Shot Face Blur also has Ethylhexyl Methoxycinnamate as the main sunscreen ingredient, along with Zinc Oxide and Titanium Dioxide. There are also humectants in the product (Butylene Glycol, Pentylene Glycol, Glycerin, as well as other skin conditioning agents and emollients (Butylene Glycol Dicaprylate/Dicaprate, Tribehenin), which add some skincare benefits to the product, serving like a moisturizer. There are also emulsifiers (Sorbitan Isostearate, Glyceryl Behenate/Eicosadioate) as well as other thickeners, preservatives and functional ingredients (Disteardimonium Hectorite, Magnesium Sulfate, Disodium Edta, Phenoxyethanol). Lastly, we have Mica, which gives the product some shimmeriness, and some colourants (Iron Oxides (Ci 77492), Iron Oxides (Ci 77491)) because the product is coloured.

So, we can deduce from the ingredients list that this is a lightweight primer, with some moisturizing and sunscreen properties. The combination of silicones and polymers also means that the product would form a nice smooth layer on the skin for the next step of makeup, thus endowing it with pretty good primer properties. So indeed, from a formulation perspective, this looks like a great makeup base to have.

Etude House Beauty Shot Face Blur Swatch
Etude House Beauty Shot Face Blur Swatch

Now that we've looked at the ingredients list pretty thoroughly, let's move on to swatches! The Etude House Face Blur is dispensed via a pump mechanism, which is my favourite kind of packaging - sanitary, sensible, doesn't dispense too much product, and easy to travel with. And the bottle is pretty too!

The Face Blur itself is a lightweight, light-textured cream, and to me it felt fairly "watery" - I'd describe the texture as sort of lotion-like. There is a strong baby powder-cum-floral scent to the product, and although it's a little strong at first it dissipates with use. The product also has a light beige tint, and some shimmer. The shimmer isn't too overt, though, so it's fine for everyday use - no discoball glitter in this one! When blended out, there is some coverage, but it is quite minimal. This wouldn't provide much coverage, but it does help to even out the skintone and skin's appearance somewhat.

Let's move on to a demonstration, using my nose as the test subject! And behold, my nose by itself, in all its disgusting, gross glory:

Etude House Beauty Shot Face Blur Before
My nose without any product on

And below, with the Etude House Beauty Shot Face Blur applied. You can indeed see the difference! Like I mentioned, this doesn't provide full coverage - so you can still see my blackheads and blemishes, but it does indeed fill out the pores and generally smoothen the surface of the skin. You can see from the photo below that some of the little "pore holes" on my nose are nicely filled out now, and the surface of my nose generally looks smoother and more even, even if not totally perfect. It's actually surprisngly impressive for a primer - I'd say that if you have the right skintone, and don't have any major blemishes, this might even suffice as a very light base product just by itself! You can also see that the shimmer is barely visible in the photo below, despite the Mica in the product. That's a good thing - it means you can wear the product by itself without feeling like a greaseball!

Etude House Beauty Shot Face Blur After
My nose, with Etude House Beauty Shot Face Blur applied

For me, I found the Etude House Beauty Shot Face Blur to work quite well either as a primer, or by itself as a base product. When used all over the face, it does generally help to improve the appearance of my skin, making it look brighter in subtle way. And while it doesn't cover any blemishes totally or fill out every pore and hole in my skin, I felt like it helped to generally lessen how severe they looked (by a little bit), and overall helped my skintone look more uniform. It is a fairly light shade of beige, though (I'm NC20 and this blended right in, although initially out of the tube it looked a bit fairer than my natural skintone), and I found that if I over-applied, I would get a white cast, similar to the whiteness you get when you apply too much sunscreen. So for more tanned girls, some extra blending work might be required. I think this would be a great "only have five minutes to get my face on before I rush out the door" product, since it's effectively a base product with some moisturizing properties, and also has some sun protection. So it would save me some time in layering products together.

Etude House Beauty Shot Face Blur Box
Etude House Beauty Shot Face Blur: A great product that combines the functions of a primer and light base, with some moisturizing and sunscreen benefits

So, would I recommend the Etude House Beauty Shot Face Blur? Yes, if you are looking for a good primer or makeup base product, to be used either alone or more likely under another foundation, with some moisturizing and sunsceen benefits. I also like the lightweight feel that doesn't feel heavy or oily on skin, but doesn't feel too silicone-y (or at least, not as silicone-y for a primer product, anyway). And it was indeed effective at subtly improving the look of my skin, giving slight coverage to imperfections, and making my pores and skin surface look better overall. At SGD$27.90, it's a pretty reasonable price for a base makeup product, and worth checking out.
Recommended? Pigmentation Texture Application Colour
Yes, great makeup base 5/10 8/10 7/10 7/10
The Bottom Line: The Etude House Beauty Shot Face Blur is a great makeup base/primer product with a slight beige tint, combined with some sunscreen benefits, that help to smoothen skin and cover minor imperfections.



  1. Your swatch looks pretty good! I'm thinking of trying this one myself. ^^

  2. What is the best primer that you have tried for blurring pores and helping your foundation last?
    I struggle with huge pores and I don't know how to cover them up !

    1. @Alex: Pores can indeed be a challenge! Different people may find different things work for them, owing to different skin types and preferences, but for me, the ones that I've thought are good were the MUFE Step 1 Skin Equalizer Primers (, and the Kiehl's Micro Blur Skin Perfector ( Hope that helps! :)

  3. Great review, thank you for keeping things objective and providing some really awesome shots of it in action, I think it's one thing when bloggers talk about how good or bad a product is but it's better when they can show me/us :D

  4. Hi, thank you for your wonderful review. Can I know do we apply this before BB cream or after BB/CC cream? Thanks! - Tracy

    1. @Tracy: Etude House recommends you apply this before BB cream. I sometimes use it by itself in lieu of BB cream though!

  5. Will this clog pores? I love the result!

    1. @Anonymous: I doubt it, unless you are sensitive to some of the ingredients inside, e.g. the silicones. I think it should be fine for most people though!

  6. Can this be used on dark skin tones?

    1. @Unknown: It's tinted with a fairly light beige shade, although it's not opaque. I suspect on darker skintones the beige tint might make it look a bit ashy. But I know of a reader who is about NC30 in skintone who successfully used the product, so maybe if that's your skintone it could still work for you. But my guess is that if you're signifixantlu darker than that, then it might be more trouble than it's worth making it work.

  7. Hey! Is this product fine without any foundation or BB cream. Is it great to use just for itself? Cause I dont apply foundations :D

    1. @Anonymous: Sure you can use it without foundation or BB Cream, but it doesn't have much coverage or pigmentation by itself. So it will generally improve the appearance of smoothness of your skin, but it won't cover imperfections like a foundation does.

  8. Well done on your nose close up photo! That's brave heart style! Love! Definitely following you :D




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