Esprique Smooth on Liquid Foundation UV

You know those moments when you look at something and can't help but scratch your head and think "WTF?" and "how did it ever make it past the doodles on a piece of paper stage of product design?"
Were all the people in that creative meeting brain dead? Or perhaps there was no creative meeting at all? What about focus groups? Consumer testing? Were they all done under a rock in another galaxy? Or perhaps only half-blind women over 80 were invited to participate?

Those were the questions that ran through my head today during my very first encounter with Esprique's stamping foundation a.k.a. Smooth on Liquid Foundation UV.

Hmmm... sometimes companies mean well, but somewhere along the way, from the drawing board to the store shelf, things go horribly wrong. This is not one of those times.

Sometimes companies get a really bad idea, but instead of discarding it at the first project meeting, they inexplicably run with it. And Esprique Smooth on Liquid Foundation UV is a prime example of what happens in such cases.

Chyba kazdy, z jakiejs okazji, mial taki moment, ze po prostu drapal sie po glowie i jedyne co mogl powiedziec, to "co to, u diabla, jest?" i "jak to w ogole mozliwe, ze ktos tego gniota wyprodukowal?"
Czy w ogole ktos tego gniota przetestowal? Gdzie i jak? Czy robily to 80-letnie babcie, ktore swoje ostatnie kosmetyki kupily 20 lat temu?

To mniej wiecej co sobie pomyslalam stojac dzis twarza w twarz przed podkladem do stemplowania, czyli Esprique Smooth on Liquid Foundation UV.

Czasem firmy maja dobre checi, ale cos po drodze od projektu do wykonania sie im poknoci. To nie jest przypadek Esprique.

Czasem firma wpadnie na naprawde durny pomysl, ale zamiast pozbyc sie go w trybie natychmiastowym, wchodzi on do produkcji. Ten Esprique Smooth on Liquid Foundation UV jest doskonalym przykladem takiego wlasnie stanu rzeczy.

When I saw a preview of this product on Haru's blog, it looked to me like Japan's answer to the Korean cushion foundation phenomenon.

Today, after playing with this "cushion" at the store, I am convinced that was indeed the case. But instead of simply copying the Korean design (with enough small changes to call it its own), Kose (the company behind the Esprique brand) assumed that Japanese women are stupid.

Sad.

But this is not the first time that Esprique botched a Korea-inspired product.

Earlier this year it gave us the magical Cool BB Spray:

Kiedy po raz pierwszy zobaczylam ten podklad na blogu Haru, wygladal mi on jak japonska odpowiedz na fenomen koreanskiego podkladu w poduszce.

Dzis bawiac sie ta japonska "poduszka" w sklepie, jestem przekonana, ze taki wlasnie byl zamiar producenta. Ale zamiast po prostu skopiowac koreanski dizajn (z wystarczajaca iloscia malych zmian, zeby mozna bylo nazwac go "oryginalnym"), Kose (firma, ktora produkuje linie Esprique) wyszla chyba z zalozenia, ze Japonki to idiotki.

Smutne...

Ale to nie pierwszy raz kiedy Esprique, zainspirowane Korea, wypuscilo na rynek totalnego gniota.

Wiosna tego roku ukazal sie w sklepach Cool BB Spray:

Which seems to have been inspired by Korean products with Thermal Protection Factor.
And it's all great and wonderful until you actually try this spray and see its color.
Despite what the promo photos show, this stuff seemed to have been formulated for people a lot darker than the average Japanese woman.

I wanted to try it, I was willing to spend the money. Unfortunately, I am not into spray-on tan look. Because that's exactly what the color looked like - like a cheap, fake, yellow tan.
That was back in May of this year. Now we have September and all summer long you could see this spray bundled in value-packs with other Esprique products. Obviously, it is not selling on its own.

But that was not enough for Kose, it seems, because now they bring us this idiotic Esprique stamping foundation.

Spray ten wydaje sie byc zainspirowany koreanskimi produktami z Thermal Protection Factor.
I wszystko byloby pieknie i cacy dopoki nie zobaczylam koloru tego cuda.
Zdjecia promocyjne pokazuja Japonke biala jak dziewicza lilije, ale to zasluga nie spray'u, ale photoshopa.

Chcialam go kupic, mialam dobre checi. Ale niestety nie dla mnie spray-on zolta opalenizna w kolorku jak znalazl dla blachar z Nowej Huty.

To bylo w maju. Teraz mamy wrzesien i przez cale lato mozna bylo kupic ten spray jako dodatek do innych produktow firmy Kose. Czyli wychodzi na to, ze sam z siebie nie sprzedaje sie zbyt dobrze.

Ale Kose malo sie tym przejmuje, bo teraz wypuszczaja na rynek ten nieszczesny podklad do stemplowania.

Clearly inspired by a Korean cushion foundation product, this abomination was designed by somebody who heard of cushions, but never actually held one in his hands.

It's a foundation jar with a screw-on cap (how quaintly retro). Inside the jar we will see a round elastic net. The foundation is under the net.

To apply the foundation you get a gigantic blob of sponge shaped like a stamp.

Widac wyraznie, ze cudo to bylo inspirowane koreanska poduszka. Ale niestety, zostalo zaprojektowane przez kogos, kto poduszki znal tylko ze slyszenia i nigdy takowej w rece nie mial.

Esprique daje nam sloiczek z podkladem zamykany na zakretke. W sloiczku znajduje sie elastyczna siatka. Podklad siedzi luzem pod siatka.

Nakladac mamy ten podklad gigantyczna gabka w ksztalcie stempla.

If the sample I saw today is any indication, this is not the best quality sponge, either. I've seen better sponges in multi-packs from 100 yen stores.

You're supposed to apply the foundation like this:

Jesli to co macalam dzis w sklepie to rzeczywiscie gabka do nakladania tego podkladu, to jest ona niestety bardzo kiepskiej jakosci. Lepsze gabki mozna znalezc w multi-pakach z Daiso.

Podklad mamy nakladac w ten sposob:

So does this Smooth on Liquid Foundation UV have any good points?
Actually yes, it does. It comes in seven shades. Compared to the usual two or, in rare cases three, Korean cushion shades, Esprique is the winner here.

But that might be its only good point.
The application method sucks.

Let me repeat it again to make sure everyone gets it - this stamping fiasco sucks.

Why? As cushion foundations are very thin, watery almost, and their sponges are not really true sponges at all, the product goes on the face smoothly and seamlessly.

This effect is impossible to achieve with this tacky chunk of a sponge. No matter how carefully, how gently and how precisely I was stamping today, it was still stamping. The foundation was too thick to spread evenly on the skin, so it just sat there waiting for better days. Blending it with the stamping sponge didn't help either. Here you'd need a proper Beauty Blender, but then it wouldn't be stamping, right?
The consistency of this foundation is completely unsuitable for this application method. Despite its name, the foundation is not liquid enough. After stamping, you still need to blend it out and blend it in somehow.

On the other hand, I suppose, if the foundation was more liquidy, it would be eaten up by the stupid stamping sponge in alarming quantities. Here it shows how important the design of the cushion sponge is. The geniuses at Kose obviously never looked at a silky Korean cushion sponge up close and personal.

Wiec czy ten Esprique Smooth on Liquid Foundation UV ma jakies dobre strony?
Tak, ma.
Dostepny bedzie w siedmiu odcieniach.
W porownaniu z koreanskimi poduszkami, gdzie zazwyczaj mamy dwa odcienie, czasem trzy, Esprique wygrywa.

Ale to chyba jedyny plus Esprique.

Nakladanie tego podkladu to jakis koszmar.
Powtorze raz jeszcze - koszmar.

Dlaczego?

Koreanskie poduszkowe podklady sa bardzo wodniste i ich gabeczki sa specjalnie zaprojektowane do nakladania takiej konsystencji. Podklad idzie na twarz ladniutko i rowniutko.

Taki efekt jest niestety niemozliwy przy tej tandetnej gabce do stemplowania. Bez wzgledu jak dokladnie, starannie i delikatnie stemplowalam, to wygladalo to na stemplowanie. Podklad siedzial sobie na skorze i czekal na lepsze czasy.
Do blendowania potrzebny bylby Beauty Blender, a tej gabce do Beauty Blendera niestety daleko, bardzo daleko.

Konsystencja tego podkladu po prostu nie nadaje sie do nakladania w ten sposob. Choc w nazwie figuruje "liquid" to do plynnej konsystencji mu baaaaardzo daleko.
Ale gdyby byl rzadszy, to wtedy niestety zostalby wchloniety przez ta okropna gabke. I tutaj wychodzi na to, ze geniusze w Kose nigdy koreanskiej gabki w kompakcie poduszkowym na zywo nie widzieli.

And the saddest part of all this?

Esprique has really good foundations. It's a solid mid-range brand and I like their color make up a lot. I am sure this foundation in itself is also very good.
But stuck in a jar with a net on top and applied with a huge stamper, it doesn't live up to its full potential.

And I'm also going to ignore the question of just how a woman is supposed to carry this "compact" and sponge in her purse for touchups...

This abomination is going to be released mass market in Japan on October 16th.

A najsmutniejsze w tym wszystkim jest to, ze Esprique ma naprawde dobre podklady. To solidna linia sredniopolkowa i lubie ich kolorowe kosmetyki.
Jestem pewna, ze ten podklad sam w sobie jest rowniez dobry.
Ale wepchniety w sloiczek z siatka i nakladany stemplem nie ma okazji, aby pokazac swoj potencjal.

Pomine milczeniem kwestie tego, jak rozwiazac problem noszenia tego sloiczka i stempla w torebce na poprawki makijazu w ciagu dnia...

Ten koszmarek wchodzi do masowej sprzedazy w Japonii 16 pazdziernika.