WHAT IS BB CREAM?

If you’ve ever wondered what the hell BB Cream actually is, you’re not alone. It’s been sitting on shelves for years with its smug little letters, quietly promising to do it all. So what does it actually do? And does it do it all?

BB stands for blemish balm or beauty balm, but forget the textbook version. Think of BB Cream as your overachieving mate who multitasks like a boss, part skincare, part makeup, with SPF protection thrown in for good measure. It came out of Germany, got picked up by Korean beauty, and eventually turned up here doing the job that used to take three products.

What does BB cream do?

BB is designed to:

• Hydrate and smooth the skin
• Even tone and texture
• Deliver light-to-medium coverage
• A bit of sun protection, depending on the formula.

The point is that all of that happens in one step. You're not moisturising, then priming, then foundation-ing, then remembering the SPF you forgot. It's one thing, and it does a bit of everything. It gives you natural-looking coverage while packing in ingredients that actually do something for your skin. The more you wear it, the better it is for your skin.

BB Cream vs Foundation: what's the difference?

Foundation has one job, and it does it very well: coverage. It's built to even out your whole face and stay put, and if you want to cover something properly, foundation is the tool.

BB cream is doing several jobs at once, so it doesn't go as hard on any single one of them. Coverage is lighter. You'll still see your skin through it, which is usually the point. What you get instead is hydration, a bit of skincare, some protection, and a finish that looks like you slept well.

How to choose between them:

• Want your skin covered, properly and all over? That's foundation.
• Want to look like yourself, awake, in about thirty seconds? That's BB cream
• Somewhere in between? BB cream that builds. The BOOIE Excellent BB Cream is medium and buildable, so you can put a bit more where you want a bit more and leave the rest of your face alone.

Most of us aren't choosing once and for all, either. Plenty of women wear BB cream Monday to Friday and pull out foundation when there's a wedding.

BB cream vs CC cream

CC stands for colour correcting, it leans into cancelling out colour you'd rather not see, so redness, sallowness, uneven patches. They tend to be a bit lighter in texture and a bit more about tone than about moisture.

BB cream leans the other way, towards hydration and skincare, with the colour work as a side effect of coverage rather than the main event.

If you've got redness you want neutralised specifically, a CC cream is built for that. If your skin's on the drier side and you want one product to sort out the whole face, BB cream is the easier answer. For a lot of women over 40, skin gets drier before it gets redder, which is usually why BB wins.

BB cream vs tinted moisturiser

Tinted moisturiser is exactly what it says: moisturiser with a bit of colour stirred through it. Lovely stuff, very light, and if you want the barest hint of evening-out then it does the job.

BB cream is doing more. There's more pigment in it, so there's actual coverage. There's usually SPF. And there's more skincare in the formula than a tint-and-go moisturiser.

Think of it as a sliding scale. Tinted moisturiser at one end, foundation at the other, and BB cream sitting in the middle doing the most jobs for the least effort. That middle spot is why it's the one most people end up reaching for on a Tuesday.

What's actually in BB Cream (and what to look for)

This is where BB creams stop being interchangeable, because the letters on the tube don't tell you much. Worth checking the back:

• Hydrating ingredients. Hyaluronic acid is the one to look for. It holds water in the skin, which is what keeps everything looking smooth rather than settling.
• Skin-loving oils and vitamins. Ours has coconut oil and vitamin E in there.
• SPF. Not every BB cream has it. Excellent BB Cream has SPF 30. Handy, though we'd never tell you it replaces your actual sunscreen on a real sun day.
• Non-comedogenic. Means it's formulated not to block pores. Worth having when you're wearing something every day.
• What's not in it. No parabens and no nasties. Ours is Australian made and 100% cruelty-free, with no parabens or nasties.

How to choose your BB cream shade

• Match your jaw, not your hand. Your hand is a different colour to your face. Your jawline tells the truth.
• Check it in daylight. Bathroom lighting has lied to all of us.
• Between two shades? Go lighter. BB cream is buildable and sheer enough to warm up as you blend. Too dark is much harder to talk your way out of than too light.
• Your shade moves with the seasons. Most of us are half a shade darker in February than in July, which is a good reason not to buy a shade for life.

Excellent BB Cream comes in nine shades, from Ivory through to Chestnut. If you're not sure where you land, our shade finder will sort you out in about a minute.

How to put it on

Short version: moisturise first and give it a minute to sink in, use less than you think, dot it around your face and blend from the centre out with your fingers. Fingers warm the formula so it melts into your skin instead of sitting on top of it. Build only where you want a bit more, rather than adding another layer everywhere.

That's about thirty seconds once you've got the hang of it, which, realistically, is what most of us have. The longer version, including how to keep it from going cakey by 3pm, is over in How to Apply BB Cream for a Natural Look.

Why everyone loves BB Cream:

BB Cream is the ultimate shortcut for busy, time poor women. It’s perfect if you:

• Want coverage without a full foundation routine
• Love skincare but don’t have time for 12 steps
• Need one product that multitasks as hard as you do
• Want makeup that cares for your skin, not just sits on it

Translation: it’s makeup with benefits.

Meet Excellent BB Cream - BOOIE’s Everyday Hero

Not all BB Creams are created equal. So we made Excellent BB Cream. The best BB Cream for mature and changing skin, made right here in Australia.

Our co-founder Celeste has been wearing it on repeat for months and calls it “the tits” (her words, not ours).

Why she’s Excellent:

• Medium-buildable coverage (a step up from Bloody Delicious, but still light and breathable).
• Collagen + Hyaluronic Acid = skincare in disguise SPF 30 daily defence.
• Hydrating, smoothing, non-comedogenic formula.
• Australian made. Hormone-friendly. Creamy. Blendable. Damn excellent.