I thought I’d got it sorted out. I’ve been using Bobbi Brown’s foundations for years. Here they are on my hand, Honey for the summer on the left and Natural Beige, my normal winter colour on the right. I don’t know if I’d qualify in the Asian matrimonials as “wheatish,” probably not, but I’m quite fair-skinned for an Indian. You can see from this photo that my hand is somewhere between the two colours but that’s because it’s a hand and the foundation goes on my face, which is lighter, generally.

But in the last couple of years something curious has happened to my skin: it seems that the accumulated sun damage from so many years’ unprotected sun exposure – my Indian skin didn’t burn in the UK summer sun – and the relics of my teenage assaults on acne have come back to haunt  me and thrown up hyper-pigmentation on my skin. Let this be a WARNING to young Asian girls ALWAYS USE SUNSCFREEN and NEVER PICK YOUR SPOTS.

Now, I tried to address the historic hyper pigmentation by using the RéAura and my efforts to do this last year were well documented here. Sadly, though my skin is now nowhere near as dark as it became last year, it’s still more dusky than my normal bleak mid-winter colour and so my current foundation colour no longer suits. I’ll address my next approach to the hyper-pigmentation issue in a future post.

Well, you might say, nobody’s perfect. Indeed, but having the wrong colour make-up can be disastrous for me. A shade too light and I can look like an ashen zombie, a tad too dark and I look as orange as a Belisha beacon on a zebra crossing. And no, I’m not being over-dramatic. I speak from experience. In places where they are unfamiliar with high-end Asian women buying high-end cosmetics, such as Paris, there is a tendency to over-estimate the darkness of my complexion, especially under the artificial lights of the couple in the Galeries Lafayette. “Ah, oui, Madame,” they said,” C’est juste,” I convinced myself I agreed with them for a whole weekend before viewing with horror the Satsuma staring back at me from the mirror of the Paul nearest the school. No. Foundation that’s too dark is a disaster for me.

This experience has taught me that it’s best to go to a make-up counter in an area where they’re used to serving Asian customers. Singapore is good. But Bluewater, with its large local Sikh population, is closer and less sweaty.

Now, I’m a restless soul with a low boredom threshold and to paraphrase Judy Finnigan, you can lie in bed and be as cosy and warm as anything but sometimes you just have to change position. And that is how I felt about my Bobbi Brown foundations: it was time for a change. So I changed to Chanel.

A natural Francophile despite the memorable experiences of my sojourn in Paris, I have always had a high regard for Chanel products: French, reassuringly expensive, stylishly packaged, but in pre-Bobbi Brown years their invariably pinky-toned foundations had the same effect on me as using a too-dark foundation: I was Tangoed. Recently, though, they have responded to their clientele’s demographic change and started producing foundations with more yellow undertones. Steering towards the Chanel counter, I was advised to try 60 Beige Perfection Lumière Foundation, long-wear and suitable for my combination skin. I tried it and looked at myself outside and, having convinced myself that it was the right colour for me, bought a bottle. Naturally my first application was somewhat heavy-handed: a very little of this foundation goes a very long way, and was concerned at the matt, mask-like effect on my skin. I tried using less the following day but kept wanting to wash my face as I thought I looked dirty. My feeling was that I had bought a shade too dark. I took it back to the shop and consulted another assistant who confirmed her colleague’s choice so I went to a second shop and asked to try a lighter colour, 50 Beige.

The assistant felt that it was a good match if a little too light. I’m seriously wondering, though, if these cosmetics salespeople are becoming accustomed to seeing all those Katie Price, TOWIE, Strictly-type people in all their orange glory. Look around Bromley on a Saturday and you’d think that the most highly-prized skin tone for Britain’s young women is Carrot and Coriander Soup. Perhaps it is. Alas, I’m out of step again. I’d rather look a little pale and interesting, especially since I’m adding face powder on top and that foundation has a tendency to oxidise and darken a little when it’s been worn for a while. Anyway I settled on 50 Beige as a winter colour and I’m really pleased with it. Use it even sparingly, blending quickly with a foundation brush and it gives fantastically photogenic flawless coverage. As polished as the Taylor-Burton. It’s amazing, just like a photo of Keira Knightley or whoever in a magazine, without the retouching, obviously kids. I’m not, however, really used to a matt finish (although a tough of highlighting powder will remedy this) and sometimes a more natural look is preferable, even if it does not last all day. So I invested in Vitalumière foundation, which gives a sheerer coverage. Naturally, the shade numbers for this range aren’t the same colours as the Perfection Lumière range. Sigh.

But here is a picture of the relative colours on my hand, respectively from left Perfection Lumière in 60 Beige and 50 Beige and then Vitalumière in 40 Beige. Those last two are more or less the same colour. Confused yet?

Bobbi Brown would recommend that I  mix different colours each time to get exactly the right shade but I am neither a Dulux paint mixing machine in Homebase – and even that often comes out with a colour different from the one on the swatch – nor do I have Van Gogh’s eye for colour so that proposition is a non-starter for me.

So, I’ve spent the required amount of money for a buzz and got a new product that works. Beige is chic, not boring, right?

***post not sponsored in any way***