Finding your perfect concealer can be a little bit like trying to find the yellow brick road. Wading through the deep sea of brands, shades, textures and levels of coverage is enough to send anyone into a tailspin, especially someone with dry, acne-prone or plain old sensitive skin (I have all three).

So when I met with Annie Lawless Jacobs, the founder and CEO of Lawless Beauty — one of Sephora’s fastest-growing brands — to hear about her latest product debut, a concealer aptly named Conseal the Deal Concealer (not to be confused with their Conseal the Deal Foundation), I had a healthy bit of skepticism that this new little number would move the needle in a meaningful way. It is, after all, an already overcrowded market. But after learning about its cocktail of skin care-quality ingredients and feeling its smooth, serum-like texture that still provided solid coverage, I decided to put it to the test.

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Conseal the Deal Concealer

Lawless Beauty Conseal The Deal Concealer $26 Buy Now

How I tested Lawless Beauty’s Conseal the Deal Concealer

Here are all of the nitty gritty details of exactly how I tested the new Lawless Beauty Conseal the Deal Concealer.

Products tested: Lawless Beauty Conseal The Deal Concealer in shades Marcona, Linen, Cashew and Shell
Notable ingredients: Caffeine, antioxidant complex, nasturtium flower extract and free of silicones
Testing time period: One week
Application method: Toggled between a concealer brush and my fingers
Price: $26
Available to shop: Available now at Sephora.com + lawlessbeauty.com; available in Sephora stores April 22nd
Testing Verdict: One application offered plenty of natural-looking coverage against my acne scars, random skin redness/discoloration and under-eye bags without looking cakey, flakey or ‘makeup-y.’ It also stayed put; I only had to reapply in a few areas in small amounts.

Lawless Beauty Conseal the Deal Concealer pros + cons

Here’s my complete breakdown of Lawless Beauty’s Conseal the Deal Concealer’s strengths and weaknesses.

Pros

Medium to full coverage
Serum-like texture
20 shades
Variety of base undertones
Super versatile
Easy to apply + blend
Shades are very similar, so you can potentially wear a few

Cons

Shades are very similar, so it can be tricky to select the perfect match

The all-day test

What better way to test a product’s longevity than to wear it for a full, stressful 9-5? After washing my face and doing my morning skin care, I applied Conseal the Deal Concealer in Linen, a light shade with neutral undertones, to my under-eyes and to highlight my T-zone, especially above my eyebrows.

For the area around my nose and the dip in my chin, I applied Lawless Beauty’s Marcona, a still-light shade, but with golden undertones, which has a slightly darker finish. (Note: When testing, I always start with a light touch because you can easily layer on more for stronger coverage, but it’s not so easy to do the reverse.) Then I buffed out the Conseal the Deal Concealer, starting with the lighter color, with my fingertips and then I used the Lawless Beauty concealer brush for the places where I wanted a more golden finish.

I was delightfully surprised at how potent a small amount was and how far I could smooth it out and get it to travel, rather than having to apply broad strokes of product that won’t move or blend. I loved the lighter concealer under my eyes, which made them look wider and brighter, while the golden tones melted perfectly into my skin.

Given the liquid-y formulation, I was honestly shocked at the full coverage. My acne scars are not small, nor are they a subtle shade of pink, and I’m used to having to do several applications before finding coverage I’m happy with, and at that point, it usually looks cakey.

Throughout the day, I checked in how the Conseal the Deal was doing and it fared extremely well. I only needed to reapply around my nose, where it had slightly creased by midday, but after gently blurring with my fingertip, it looked fresh as a daisy. It also lasted well into the evening — I dabbed two dots onto scars that were beginning to peep through before meeting friends for dinner.

The rainy day test

Before heading out to an eyebrow appointment and brunch, I applied Conseal the Deal in the light-medium shade with pink undertones, Shell, in areas where I wanted to conceal and brighten, and Cashew, a medium hue with a golden-olive tint, for places I wanted a precise skin-match.

Again the coverage was magical, although Cashew turned out to be a little dark for my pale, winter skin, but I have high hopes for it, come summertime.

I needed to blot and reapply after getting caught in an unexpected rainfall, but still no caking. Impressive!

The sunny day test

Bright spring days are thrilling, but not usually for makeup on my skin. The sun makes my whole face shiny, causing my makeup to slide around and look like a mess. I applied Lawless Beauty’s Shell and Marcona again to my undereyes and acne scars, respectively. They blended very easily and the finish looked almost airbrushed — you’d never know I struggled with acne at all.

I spent the day in the sun and touched my face a lot trying to blot off excess shine, which did cause some of the coverage to disappear. I applied everywhere again, then lightly dusted the areas with loose powder and that set it for good.

The 12-hour test

For marathon days, I need marathon makeup. I applied two Conseal the Deal concealers — Linen and Marcona — around 7am and didn’t wash them off until about 8pm. My complexion is true combination skin — dry in some areas and shiny in others — so it can be tricky to strike the right balance between liquid and creamy textures that will work for both areas. Liquid tends to cake in dry areas and creamy is prone to creasing — both of which worry me.

To prepare for the day, I used an even smaller amount of product than usual, in case I needed to reapply throughout the day, and I also took the precautionary step of setting the concealer with loose powder (although I still worried it would cause creasing later on).

By mid-afternoon, I did notice two small lines of creased product on both sides of my nose, along with a subtle pinkness where the Lawless Beauty concealer migrated. To solve, I buffed out the creases with the concealer brush, then patted two dots of product around my nose and outward toward my cheeks. The new application blended in easily with the rest of my makeup — none of that telltale, lingering ‘I just reapplied’ white cast.

After work, some of the coverage on my skin disintegrated, so I added a little more of the Lawless Beauty concealer there and smoothed out with my fingertip. This was the only area that looked slightly cakey by the end of the night.

The minimal makeup test

Ask any makeup artist which is more difficult to achieve, a full-on glam face of makeup or a barely there, impossibly natural look, and I’ll bet every single one says the latter. So you could argue that the minimal makeup test is by far the most telling.

For days where you don’t need or want a full face of makeup, or even full coverage, but you want something, you’d normally reach for something feather-light with subtle coverage. Instead, I reached for Conseal the Deal’s Marcona shade and used it only where I really needed to, like on top of a few of my stronger blemishes, but I left my under-eyes, T-zone and other areas I like to highlight with concealer, alone.

Because Conseal the Deal offers pretty solid coverage, I didn’t think it would match my low-key, running errands on a Sunday vibe, but it gave me the color-correction I wanted, the weightless feel I like and the imperceptible-to-strangers finish that I undeniably covet.

Is Lawless Beauty’s Conseal the Deal Concealer worth it?

What’s interesting about the Lawless Beauty Conseal the Deal Concealer is that it straddles several different worlds at once. It’s makeup, but with skin care-quality ingredients; it’s a liquid, but won’t easily cake or add an oily shine; feels lightweight, yet offers full coverage.

It also gave me exactly what I want from a concealer: It camoflauged redness and blemishes, lightened under eye shadows and gave me a natural, even-looking skin tone. In terms of application, I loved its effortless versatility and how easy it was to blend and buff into skin using either my fingertips or a concealer brush, without patting or wiping away coverage.

If your coverage style is less-is-more or you prefer a buildable concealer, this one may be too pigmented for you. But as someone who’s struggled to find the right concealers and foundations for my picky, sensitive skin over the years, I would happily trade the minor, subtle creases and wear away I saw towards the end of the day for the magic it worked on my complexion, without looking makeup-y.

Lawless Beauty Conseal The Deal Concealer

Lawless Beauty Conseal The Deal Concealer $26 Buy Now

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Lawless Beauty’s New Conseal the Deal Concealer Provides All-Day Coverage Without the Caked-On Look

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