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Not sure what to buy first from the ‘make-up for skincare-lovers’ brand? We’ve got you covered
When Sephora launched in the UK towards the end of 2022, it brought with it a few brands we couldn’t previously get over here, including ILIA, Skinfix and Vegamore.
And then, when its first London-based store opened its doors last month, beauty obsessives were surprised with the appearance of more new brands, one of which included Kosas – now also available in SpaceNK.
A Los Angeles-based brand created back in 2015, Kosas positions itself as a “clean make-up for skincare freaks”, with its founder – Sheena Zadeh-Daly – believing that what you put on your body should be just as good as what you put in it.
While the definition of “clean” within the beauty space is ambiguous, Kosas claims to be clinically proven, it uses nourishing ingredients at active levels in order to hydrate, soothe, brighten and plump. Plus, the brand promises impressive pigment levels and lightweight, comfortable-to-wear formulas suitable for all skin types.
Its range of products spans everything from foundation and concealer to a spray-on serum and even deodorant – but how good is it really? We put a selection of best sellers to the test to find out what is worth spending your cash on.
Our tester received an array of different products that she worked into her everyday make-up and skincare routine for a few weeks. We paid attention to ease of use, pigment levels and general colour payoff, as well as longevity – and in terms of skincare, we considered how the products made our skin look and feel.
This product is up there with the best that you will ever try, mark our tester’s words. Dubbed as “concealer meets eye cream”, it’s enriched with a blend of brightening, soothing and plumping ingredients (like caffeine, pro vitamin B5, peptides and hyaluronic acid) and offers medium coverage. It’s super creamy, non-drying – we found that it doesn’t settle in fine lines – and a little goes a long way.
Suitable to use both under the eyes to disguise dark circles, our tester also used it on hormonal breakouts and it covered redness as well as reducing the appearance of them. Our tester found it best applied directly onto skin using the applicator wand, she then left it to dry for a few seconds before gently dabbing it into skin using her finger – that way she managed to achieve a seamless finish every time.
If it’s a healthy-looking, natural glow that you’re after, try this foundation. The buildable formula means you can apply as little or as much as you like without worrying that it’ll look cakey – and it ensures that skin still looks like skin.
Our tester was impressed with the vast shade range, and the added skincare benefits really take this product up a notch: it’s formulated with a blend of ingredients including niacinamide and caffeine to brighten, squalane and arnica to sooth, peptides to hydrate and it has SPF25 to boot (although we would still recommend applying a separate sunscreen underneath). Our tester found that it lasted well throughout the day, it played well with her usual skincare and it blended out nicely.
The idea of a spray-on serum was new to our tester, but as somebody who considers a mist an integral part of her daily skincare routine, she was intrigued. The misting mechanism is fine and it evenly coats our face with just two pumps, it does also feel incredibly moisturising and in the summer it would be super refreshing to use throughout the day – but we found that it didn’t replace our usual serum step. Instead, our tester used it after cleansing and before the rest of her skincare in the same way as she would any other hydrating mist. It is expensive for what it is – and while we love having it in our routine, it wouldn’t be the first product from Kosas that we would recommend buying.
AHA deodorant is a real game changer as far as our tester is concerned: she started using it just over a year ago, but products are few and far between so discovering that Kosas has one was a pleasant surprise. AHAs (alpha hydroxy acids) are an ingredient most often found in skincare, but used under the arms, it helps to smooth and prevent pesky shaving bumps, as well as working to help lighten and brighten the area, plus it helps lower the skin’s pH which prevents odour and ensures under arms stay fresh all day long.
Kosas’ offering is great: it combines lactic, mandelic and shikimic acids, is available in both scented and unscented varieties and our tester found it worked well for her, even throughout sweaty gym sessions. However, it’s worth noting that this is a natural deodorant and the transition can take some time so patience is key.
First, we need to say that we are impressed at a 10-strong range of shades for setting powder. Most brands usually only offer three or four shades at a push, so this made a pleasant change. Much like the foundation (£35, Spacenk.com) and concealer (£25, Spacenk.com), the powder is infused with skincare ingredients, including bamboo stem extract to reduce shine, passionfruit leaf extract to smooth and chinese peony to minimise the appearance of pores.
It works as a setting and smoothing powder, and we used a small brush to apply it to targeted areas rather than all over – namely the T-zone, around the nose and under the eyes. We didn’t find that it looked cakey or powdery. However, some users with particularly oily skin have said that it doesn’t work well for them, so tread carefully depending on your skin type.
Even if you’re not much of a lip gloss kind of person, this is worth trying. Wet-look and super glossy without being overly sticky, we love the range of shades (our favourite is Unzipped which is a your-lips-but-better colour) and the fact it’s transfer proof. The one downside is that once it made its way into our tester’s handbag, she noticed that the bottle started leaking and the product started coming out through the lid which was a bit annoying. However, the fact it hydrates and plumps lips so well means we were able to somewhat overlook that slight spillage issue.
Kosas’ brow packaging is probably our favourite, and the product inside the pink tube doesn’t disappoint either. Despite not really being a huge fan of brush-on brow products, the air brow volumzing treatment gel still managed to impress our tester. The colour (medium brown) was a great match, the brush size was great for quickly applying product through the brows and it gave a fluffy, defined finish with minimal effort that stays in place.
The formula itself contains plant-based microfibres to boost volume and fullness, and the triangular-shaped spoolie was a nice addition that helps to make application quicker and easier. Plus, the clear version (£20, Spacenk.com) is great for the no make-up days when brows need a little something.
Okay, so this is proof that a brow pencil isn’t always just a brow pencil – this one took some getting used to, but once we figured it out, it was brilliant. The tiny pencil is triangle-shaped, meaning you can use it to either draw fine hair-like strokes, or you can use it on a slight angle to fill in larger, more sparse areas (the front of our tester’s brows usually need a little more work). The key is not to twist it up too high to ensure you’re able to stay in control and don’t end up pressing too hard – that’s partly where we went wrong at first.
However, once we got used to it, we loved the colour pay-off and the colour match (it’s available in an impressive 10 shades) and that we were able to use it to haphazardly define the centre and tail end of brows and be more precise in the areas that required more coverage. Patience is key with this brow pencil, but trust us when we say it’s worth it in the end.
Overall, our tester is super impressed with the whole Kosas offering. If you only try one thing, make it the concealer – we loved that it worked just as well to brighten the under eyes as it did to cover blemishes. The whole range has something for everybody and the foundation spans a great variety of shades and skin tones. We would also recommend switching to the deodorant too – particularly if post-shave bumps are a personal bugbear.
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