Liquid Gold – More like Fools Gold

This review has been requested by several of my Facebook and Twitter followers.

#Poonique Mineral Touch Liquid Foundation, or as the #hunbots like to call it – Liquid Gold.

As always this review is based on my own experiences as a hunbot and from using this foundation.

If you haven’t seen it, this is the foundation they are all raving about…

The Liquid Foundation was released in 2015, until this time Poonique only did a powder and creme foundation.

The hype and buildup to this release was HUGE.  It was by far the biggest product launch I witnessed as a presenter.  It was “Liquid Gold” mania.  Post after post on Facebook, as presenters were told to “build the excitement” (spam).

If I am honest, as a presenter it was embarrassing.  You had to do your posts, or face the wrath of the uplines, but at the same time you would see people posting how fed up they are of seeing the same crappy sales pitch from so many presenters.  They weren’t buying into the “excitement building”, and it is ignorant to think that people are that naive.

We were constantly warned by the black status presenters that this would be so popular it would sell out quickly, so we needed to be proactive and put a big order in to get stock for customers as soon as it went on sale.  We didn’t want to the be the one to “miss out” and if our customers can’t order from us, they will go to someone else.  What kind of business doesn’t have stock for it’s customers?  Make sure you had it.

When the time finally came and the product was released at £30 for 20ml, as predicted it sold out very quickly.

But what was the REAL reason behind it selling out so quickly?  Was it because of all that “excitement building”, customers were logging onto our sites and ordering it for themselves?  NO.

It sold out because presenters went crazy, ordering lots of bottles for “stock”, that they didn’t need and didn’t have anyone to sell it all to yet.  Being the good hunbots they are, doing as their upline told them.

I also think another reason it sold out is because that is what Younique wanted people to think, that it was so amazing people couldn’t get enough of it.  If a product sells out, people want it more.  Customers automatically have a higher opinion of it because it MUST be good if so many people have bought it so quickly.  It is a sales tactic to make more money.

The foundations went onto “back order” and people could still buy them, just not receive them.  So people were parting with money and having nothing to show for it, and no answers when they would.  This resulted in a lot of issues and angry customers for a lot of presenters.  We were encouraged to try and sell them the powder or creme foundation, but nobody wanted that.  They had all seen the magic of this “Liquid Gold”…

One thing that confirmed my suspicions about that being a ploy to make more money, is when Younique released the cloud 9 collection…

This was the only place the “Liquid Gold” was in stock.  If you wanted to get your hands on it, you had to spend £113 on this collection.

All the uplines went onto auto-hun and gushed about how AMAZING this collection is, and how GREAT it is that you can get your hands on some Fools Gold.  I was appalled and questioned how it could be in stock for the sale of the collection, but they couldn’t fill all the back orders, for people who had already parted with their money.

I was NOT popular for sticking my head above the parapet like this.  How DARE I questions the great overloads at HQ.  No-one answered my question, just berated me for asking it, because hunbots aren’t brainwashed to think, just eliminate any logic that comes from those who dare to try.

In the training group I was in, we were encouraged to buy the collection, and then split it up and sell the individual items at a discount.  There was one problem with this, you either had to find a customer for each product at the same time before you bought it, or you had to order it using the foundation shade that one customer wanted using your own money, then desperately try and flog the rest off afterwards.  Presenters did this (in the groups I was in anyway), to try and keep hold of the customers they had waiting and  wanting to order foundations.  The foundations had been taken off of back order and were simply sold out.  There were customers who had seen the hype we had all created and wanted to try it, and now we had no product to give them.  And they certainly didn’t want to be spending £113 to try it out.  So presenters started ordering the collections, advised to do so by uplines, to retain customers, and were assured they would EASILY sell off the rest of the collection.

We were encouraged to hold (illegal) raffles in our private “VIP” groups, to try and get the cash together to buy the collections and then give the other bits away as prizes when we sold all the tickets.

Often, presenters were buying foundations off each other.  Those who had gone crazy and bought loads of it, were now struggling to get rid of it.  So they bought it and got their commission, and then sold it on to other presenters who couldn’t get their hands on it.  So those presenters buying it from fellow hunbots made nothing off those sales.  It didn’t count towards their PRS, but we were encouraged to do it to retain customers.  One of my uplines regularly used to sell stock to her team that she bought every month to reach her level.

The whole thing was a complete shambles.  We looked incompetent.  Spamming our friends and family with how amazing this product is, how everyone needs it in their life and it will change the way they look at foundation.  Then it comes to the crunch and we can’t deliver.  Obviously we were told to spin it by the uplines, say that it was SOOOOO amazing that we just couldn’t stock enough of it.  But if I am honest, I really don’t think that was the case.  Yes, I do think it was probably more popular than they thought it would be, but surely supply and demand is something a big company should be familiar with?  I honestly believe stock was held back, to both encourage hype and demand, and to force people to buy the more expensive collections to get it.

 

It took about 6 months (maybe more) for the foundation to come into stock again properly and stay in stock.  And I am not even going to go into detail about the issues with people getting the right shade.  Oh ok, I will, but briefly.  There aren’t a great selection of shades, when they were first released there was even less, particularly in the darker shades.  The “warm” shades are really yellow, the “cool” shades are really pink, and the neutral shades were either really light, or really dark.  Plus they didn’t match up with the creme and powder shades of the same name.  So when customers FINALLY got their foundation, a lot of them had issues with it not being the right colour.

They were asking presenters what shade they should order, when in reality the presenters had no idea.  A lot of hunbots AREN’T MUA’s (despite their Instagram bio stating otherwise) and had no idea how to colour match.  They would be posting pic after pic in training groups asking what shade a customer should order and it was a free for all guess.  And remember, these were colour matches done by untrained hunbots, off a selfie, with undetermined lighting.  Sure, presenters could order samples, but they had to pay for them, wait for them to be delivered, send them on to the customer, who would pick one, then order the foundation, and wait for that to arrive.  Even if the foundation was in stock, that process could easily take 2 weeks!  Sod that, pop down Boots or even drive to your nearest MAC/Clinique counter and have it much sooner.  So the bots winged it, with the “love it” guarantee as back up if the shade was wrong.  This was fine, unless of course you bought the foundation off another bot so couldn’t use the guarantee.  You were then left refunding or buying a replacement yourself.

RIGHT.  So I finally have the product in my hand to try.  It took me a couple of attempts to get the shade right.  FYI they look NOTHING like the colour match chart provided in the kit.  Throw that out, or if you have kids, put it in their school bag as a ruler.  It is about all it is good for.

Oh, I should also mention I also bought the powder puff brush (as advised by my uplines as it is the BEST thing to apply it with)

Oh, AND the concealer, because you HAVE to have both apparently…

Watch this space for the review on that.

And lets not forget the primer! It won’t go on properly without it after all. (UP-SELL LADIES!!!)

This is what it looked like back then – claimed to make pores disappear but that is a story for another time.

Anyway, I am brush in hand, ready to rock and roll.  I opened the bottle and squeezed the pipet to make sure there was no product in there before giving it a good shake.  As foundations go, this one smells quite nice, unlike the funky shine wipes. I filled the pipet once more and dropped 6 dots of foundation onto the brush as I had been advised to do.  I dotted this around my face and blended.  I looked in the mirror and was underwhelmed.I had the same result from using it with and without primer and concealer in all combinations you can think of.  6 dots just didn’t give me full coverage.  (I would just like to take a moment to direct you to Elle’s blog and the wonderful post about Sharpie vs. Foundation)

So I dotted on 6 more.  12 dots of foundation was better.  Immediately after putting it on it felt powdery soft and I felt I had a decent coverage, but not to heavy that I felt suffocated.  I don’t wear my foundation thick, so I imagine some people needed more like 18 dots to get the coverage they are comfortable and used to.  And this would be absolutely fine, for about an hour.  After that it would begin to go patchy and separate on my skin.  You could see blobs of foundation grouped together with patches of skin visible underneath.  Now the reason I tried every combination of foundation/concealer/primer was to try and combat this.  I had paid £30 for this foundation, it wasn’t quite a perfect match to my skin tone but with some powder (yes I tried setting it with Younique powder, translucent powder, setting spray, you name it!), blusher and bronzer it could work.  I wasn’t about to give up and throw £30 down the drain.

Honestly, I wanted this Fools Gold to work so badly.  I wanted to be glowing with a perfect complexion like in all the pictures and videos.  No matter what I tried I couldn’t stop it separating on my skin.  One clue to this should have been how quickly it separates in the bottle.  The 2nd morning when I went to put it on, there was a clear, oily layer on top of the foundation.  Now, I know products separate, but this was extreme.

I sent the following images to Poonique support who sent me out a new bottle of foundation.  It isn’t easy to see in a picture because the camera doesn’t pick up the oil well, but where the arrows are pointing is a really runny substance, and underneath where it is darker is thick and gloopy.

In this image – this is how it looks when it separates on your face.  Attractive.

Yes I always shook the bottle, and yes I always emptied the pipet so I was using product that was well mixed, but it STILL ALWAYS separated on my face.  And when it did that it didn’t feel silky anymore.  It felt oily, greasy and slick.  If I wanted a full days wear out of this foundation it was impossible.  I would need to remove and reapply a couple of times throughout the day.

My replacement bottle was the same.

Next I tried switching up what I used to put it on.  Different foundation brushes, beauty blenders, my fingers.  Same result every time.

So I checked quietly with other presenters I knew that wouldn’t shout at me for being a negferret to ask how they were getting on with it.  I wondered if it was my skin type that was the issue as I have quite oily skin.  They all shared similar issues, it seems I was not the only one not getting on with the Fools Gold.  Even those with combination and dry skin were having issues.

I reached out to my Facebook and Twitter followers for some more thoughts and this is the feedback I received –

“As an oily skin type it was awesome….for about half an hour! much overhyped”

and…

“where to start with the “liquid gold” aka oil slick that separates in the bottle, sinks into pores & vanishes as quick as your friends?”

And also from Elle Beau…

“I found that it went on looking all lovely (provided you teamed it with the concealer) but in a couple of hours looked shite & cheap.”

As you can see, I am not alone in my experience with this foundation.  It is by no means worth the £30 price tag.  You have to use at least twice as much as they say you do to get a half decent coverage, and then top it up throughout the day as it disintegrates on your face.  I would compare this to more of a £5 bottle of foundation, certainly not high end quality.

On my other reviews I have given recommendations of similar products I have found at reasonable prices.  However, foundation is such a personal thing, and really depends on your skin type, preference to coverage and finish.  I don’t feel that it would be useful for me to list off a load of different options.   However, if you would like to share in the comments what you use, what your skin type is, what coverage it gives you, whether it is a matte or silk finish and how much it is, my readers and I would love to know.

Also, I would still like to hear your experiences with this foundation.  Did it work really well for anyone?  If so, what were your tricks of the trade?  Please get in touch.

For me though, Liquid Gold will forever be nothing more than Fools Gold.