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Freedom Pro Correct & Conceal Palette Review

“Pro Conceal Palette – the “Makeup Artist’s Secret Weapon” in a kit format for  ease of professional use. Containing 6 cream concealing shades. Collections to suit every skin tone.”

We all have that something that we dislike about our face, from a slightly wonky nose to an eyebrow that has a random patch where hair just refuses to grow. It’s the same with skin too. From the smallest blemish, the reddest rosascea, to the deepest darkest hyper-pigmentation. Some of us are completely fine with any imperfections on our skin, some of us like to cover certain things and not others and some want/need a completely blank canvas before they apply the rest of their makeup. It doesn’t matter which one of these people you are, I have a palette here for you that just might come in handy!

This palette comes in five shades: Light, Light Medium, Medium Dark and Dark. There’s also a corrector palette with green, peach and lilac etc. solely for correcting discolouration. Each palette is £5 and mimic’s those of MAC (£35) and NYX ($12). You can purchase the Freedom Pro Conceal and Correct direct from the site or on BeautyCrowd.

The packaging is a little cube with six rectangular pans inside. For something like this I like how small and compact it is. For some reason the fact that the pans are rectangular really pleases me too. I just feel like rectangles and squares are much more professional looking. You know? This is also a great size to throw in your makeup bag if you need concealer on the go.

The idea behind the palette is to provide six mixable and customisable shades to correct unwanted colouring in the skin peeking through into foundation. Correcting before you apply foundation allows you to use less product therefore avoiding ‘cake face’ on those areas you’re really trying to cover and also meaning that you use less product which, as an MUA would be desirable. For more info on which colours cancel out which see BeautyXYZ’s feature post on my blog here.

The palette I chose was in Dark as it seemed like the best match.  It’s also the one I always look at when I’m in MAC but am just unwilling to pay £35 for…. There are four concealer shades in variations of brown/ caramel and two corrector shades in mustard yellow and an orange/red (Ochre & Pure Orange in MAC).

So, I tested this palette out over two days. One was fairly mild, a little drizzle outside but nothing unusual for England. The other was disgustingly humid without being hot. At the beginning of the day it was comfortably warm, by the end, even under the roof and air conditioning of Westfield White City, my entire face was boiling hot and the rain outside was the warm kind that’s only good if you’re in a cheesy 90’s movie and have just kissed the love of your life. Needless to say, testing conditions were varied. At the end of day one, in the places I had corrected the foundation on top looked pretty normal for a full day’s wear and I wasn’t disappointed. Day two however and where the corrector was underneath the foundation, the foundation had begun to move which left me with pale orange patches around my mouth and eyes. Not attractive but I think that was more to do with the weather than anything.

What you wear as a base for your base is always important too as it can interfere with the products. On the first day I used the Superdrug Naturally Radiant Serum and the Freedom Pro Mattify Base. On the second day I used the Boots Vitamin E Moisture Cream as moisturiser and the L’Oreal Infallible Mattifying Primer. The Boots cream was a little too oily to use with the palette, especially on such a hoy day. the serum, a thicker consistency, worked out a lot better in comparison.

In MissBudgetBeauty’s review she mentioned that the first layer of product was very emollient. She also said that once you’re past the first layer, it becomes a bit dryer and easier to use. I agree wholeheartedly. The problem is, I completely forgot about that until this morning so the two test days were working with a product I already knew would struggle until the top layer had been used up. My bad. Now that I’ve gotten through the emollient film on both the correctors and the concealers though, I think the product works much better. As a dryer formula you get much better and much more even results because the product itself is thick and pigmented.

I’ve found that the best way to apply this product is with a small fluffy brush. I used an eyeshadow flat top kabuki from an eBay set the first time and the concealer buffer from Elf yesterday and today. Both work equally as well. When I first went to apply however I used a flat eyeshadow shader…. It was a disaster as you apply far too much product. You don’t want an opaque coverage, just enough to transfer the pigment to cover what you need to. Even with the dryer bottom layers, it will never dry enough for you to put foundation on if you use a flat, dense brush and paint the stuff on. Less is more.

Here’s a picture with the rest of my makeup applied on the first day. You can see that around my mouth where the darkness is usually strongest, it’s completely gone. Where I used the orange around my eyes, it’s still slightly dull in comparison, hence the swap to the yellow.

I love the colour selection in the palette and am really happy that an affordable brand finally has colours that are richly pigmented and not white based so that people with dark skin can actually use and be satisfied with the product instead of having to make-do with what other companies offer. The yellow shade especially I’m impressed with since it’s a great match to my undertone. Overall, I enjoy the palette a lot and am looking forward to truly mastering how to mix the colours for the best results. This palette is more than worth £5!