Antonym Cosmetics | Review & Swatches

Sephora has stepped up their clean beauty game HUGELY (please say that à la Trump for the appropriate emphasis) in the past while and I couldn’t be more happy about it! I hadn’t shopped at Sephora in over a year, simply because they weren’t carrying many products that I could use or wanted to use anymore. I honestly didn’t really mind because it did help me curb impulse buying, but I’m also not at all sad that they’re now offering so many great clean brands and I can actually shop there again!

In addition to brands I already know and love, like RMS Beauty, ILIA, Tata Harper, Herbivore and REN Clean Skincare, they are now also selling Antonym Cosmetics. I got my first Antonym product in the February 2018 Mapleblume box, one of the gorgeous Organic Baked Blushes in the shade Rose, and ever since my first taste of Antonym (not literally, haha), I’ve been itching to try more!

Antonym sent me a bunch of their products to test about a month ago (I also bought one myself because I couldn’t resist, haha), and I’ve been using them borderline religiously since they came. Let’s start with the Antonym Skin Esteem Foundation ($52), which I have in the shade Beige Light, because this gets mixed reviews. If I hadn’t watched Natural Beautiful Life’s review of this, I probably would’ve ended up hating it… and let me tell you why.

This foundation doesn’t play too well with product underneath. I can get away with a light moisturizer beforehand and that’s about it- any oils, heavy serums, and primers I’ve tried to use under this have made it a giant mess to apply, regardless of whether I use my fingers, a brush or a beauty blender. It gets streaky and cakey if I have anything on underneath (especially primers, I absolutely cannot use them with this foundation but I also don’t find I need them with it, so it’s fine), so it’s best to go in with nothing but a little moisturizer. I also find it sets quickly, so I do small sections of my face at a time to avoid it becoming difficult to blend.

With all that being said, once I found the best way to apply it, I LOVE how it looks on my skin. It’s a medium coverage and you can build it up in spots that need a little extra coverage. It has a very skin-like finish and somehow gets even better looking throughout the day. I do notice that it wears off a bit on/around my nose by the end of the day, but that’s expected as pretty much every foundation does that on me. I like to set it with a little bit of the Organic Baked Foundation (which I’ll talk about below) for additional coverage and staying power.

The Antonym Organic Baked Foundation ($38) has become holy grail for me. I’ve been using it nearly every day since I got it because I love it THAT much. I have the shade Light, which is a perfect match for me, and I like using this over top of sunscreen and/or tinted moisturizers (my go-to lately has been pairing it with Beautycounter Dew Skin). It’s a light coverage- just enough to even out my skin tone- and doesn’t look even remotely dry or powdery on my skin at all. I am so, so in love with this powder foundation!

I’m wearing the Skin Esteem Foundation set with the Organic Baked Foundation in the picture below. This was taken at the very end of the day, too. I love how this combo makes my skin look so healthy and even without covering my freckles! I’m also wearing the Organic Baked Blush in Peach here.

From left: Organic Baked Foundation in Light, Skin Esteem Foundation in Beige Light, Organic Baked Blush in Peach, Organic Baked Blush in Rose, Organic Highlighting Blush in Cheek Crush

I’m obsessed with the Antonym Organic Baked Blushes ($36). I wear them almost every single day (well, lately I’ve been alternating them with my new Kosas blushes because those are so beautiful, too) because the shades I have go with absolutely everything and they are just so pretty. I also have a preference for matte blushes because I find they don’t show skin texture as much as something with a sparkle to it, so Rose and Peach (both matte) are both shades I reach for often. These are very pigmented and a little goes a long way, so these 0.28oz/8g pans will last foreeeeever. Just for a size/cost comparison, a NARS blush is $30 and has almost half the amount of product in it (0.16oz/4.8g).

I also have the Antonym Organic Highlighting Blush in Cheek Crush ($42), which gives both a flush and a glow to your cheeks. I couldn’t help but buy this after I tried and loved the Organic Baked Blushes, and I’m glad I did! It’s super pretty and the very soft shimmer in it gives a lot of luminosity. The only downside is that this probably wouldn’t do much for anyone that doesn’t have quite fair skin as it’s not super pigmented.

I’ve had my eye on the Antonym Organic Eyeshadow Quattro in Noisette ($39) for quite a while. It comes in two other shade options (Croisette and To The Moon And Black), but Noisette is definitely the most appealing to me color-wise! The pigmentation is pretty solid for 3/4 shades, but the bottom right is patchy and it took a few swipes of the shadow to build it up enough to see it properly, whereas the first three shades were just one swipe.

The first three shades are smooth and blend easily, however the bottom right shade is very difficult to work with. I have plenty of matte browns in other palettes, so it’s not the end of the world, but it would have been nice for this to have been a “one and done” palette that I could have brought traveling.

Even though the eyeshadow palette wasn’t the best ever, I would definitely rate Antonym Cosmetics as one of the top performing green beauty brands I’ve ever tried. I can’t get enough of the face products and if they release any more blush shades or new products, you KNOW I’ll be all over them!

What are your favorite Antonym products?