Etude House Moistfull Collagen Balm SPF36

When Etude House released their new Moistfull Collagen range of mostly skincare products, this balm especially stood out because its name made it sound like an all in one skin perfecting product with sun protection thrown in. The swirly pattern & compact it comes in looked cute too, so without much hesitation into my cart it went.

The box it comes in is rather big, but it holds the mirrored pact, a handy replacement sponge and a 10ml sample size of Moistfull Collagen Cream. The packaging of the compact is in a fat pearly peach coloured plastic casing with a semi reflective shiny plastic thing on the top; it does absolutely nothing so I guess it's there for decorational purposes.


Inside the compact there's another sponge on a holder which separates it from the actual balm - a rather nice feature in my opinion. The swirly balm looked so pretty that I almost couldn't bear to use and smudge it up.

Dark swirls are foundation, white swirls are moisture cream.

According to the promotional pics you can use the sponge for different areas of the face depending on how much of the sponge you use, but I find it much easier using fingers because the included sponge gives a somewhat blotchy finish. The balm texture is creamy, smooth and very easy to spread.

I really wanted to like this pretty balm, but it's pink toned and looks unnatural on me (usually NC15 sometimes NC20 in MAC) in that it's very easy to tell I'm wearing foundation. You can see the obvious mismatch even when swatched on my arm. Coverage is medium and a little cakey unless applied with a light hand.


There's also a white cast (it does say "whitening" on the box but powdery white is not a good look) when I first apply it, although this does go away after a while. Also this balm really highlights any dry patches on my face - so much for moisturizing, heh. I tried patting it on gently with the sponge, and using my fingers but both yielded pretty much the same powdery result.

All in all I'm pretty disappointed with this, so I'm sending it to my makeup drawer to gather dust.

Mine was purchased from Gmarket for 16,500KRW (around $14).