After much avoidance, "upscale" drugstore brand Lumene finally reeled me in. I picked up their Beauty Base, Vitamin C+ Energy Cocktail, and Double Stay Mineral Foundation at my local CVS.

Now, not gonna lie, but on a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give the beauty base a 4. I don't want to mess around, so I think that is fair and to the point. Its priced at $10, which is not bad at all. The packaging looks very professional and classy, so no complaints there either. There is no real scent to this product either, which is a plus. The label claims that it "fades out fine lines and imperfections optically" and that your makeup will "glide on unbelievably smoothly and stay in place beautifully even for several hours (also on oily skin)".

From my brief experience with this product, I don't think that these claims are accurate. My skin still oiled up after only 3 hours of use, and my pores are still visible. My makeup applied the same way, with or without this product. Superficially, the product was very promising, but in actuality, it did nothing good or bad. Not worth it. Even beauty secret Monistat Soothing Care Gel ($7) performs as a better primer than this!

And... speaking of let downs, I also tried Lumene's Double Stay Mineral Makeup, which is a brand new liquid mineral foundation. It was very expensive for a drugstore brand, at around $16. The color match was great, but I found that the product settled into my deeper acne scars, highlighting them more than I'd like. If you have poreless, lineless, scarless skin, I'd really suggest giving this a try... because otherwise it seems like it might settle and not cover as much as it should. I bought the one for Combo/Oily skin, so of course it seemed to highlight dry patches as well.

They did have a tester on the display, but on my hand it was much less problematically noticeable. It did feel nice on though, and I feel like it would control oil, but I just couldn't handle it. I really wanted to love it, but it just wasn't happening. I tried it again on my whole face this time and the excessive fragrance in there made my face itch!

Also, just FYI: This was my first attempt back with liquid foundation after months and months of Milani Compact Minerals. I will stick to my Milani, thank you very much.

Lastly, after reading good reviews on MakeupAlley for their Vitamin C+ Energy Cocktail (previously called Pampering Drops I believe), I attempted to try this product as well. Well, seconds from taking it out of the package, this bottle is gorgeous by the way, I realized that it had the same excessive fragrance that upset my skin in the Mineral foundation. At this point I'd had enough. No go, and no way for $20. Bye bye, Lumene.

The verdict: Mediocre Primer, Bad Mineral Liquid Foundation, Potentially good Moisturizer but I won't give it a shot. I feel like they are making products that you just plain and simple don't really need either way. A good marketing ploy by CVS but I just am not buying into it, even if I wanted to love them. They are way overpriced, even though the packaging is classy and the products claim to be loaded with quality ingredients like "cloudberry" and such, whatever that is. I should've trusted my instincts! All three are going back to CVS tonight, by the way.

Well, thanks anyway Lumene, for giving me something to blog about!