REVIEW: DAINTY DOLL FOUNDATION

*Swatches further down!*

Since Nicola Roberts, of Girls Aloud fame, launched her full Dainty Doll make up range in 2009, I was very curious about it and really wanted to try it. The make up in the range is specifically aimed at those of us Casper the Friendly Ghost lookalikes. (I have actually had a stranger sing the Casper song at me and he then asked me why I paint my face white. To which I had to tell him that was just my face... Awkward.)
A bottle of the Dainty Doll liquid foundation costs £22 (though it's currently on offer in Boots) which I'm not comfortable with paying if I'm not sure I will actually like the foundation. My current No.7 foundation costs £12.50 and I was matched to it and was happy to spend the money on it. However, there's no Boots that stock Dainty Doll near me so I'd have to buy online and hope!

Anyway, Jade mentioned that she'd found Dainty Doll being sold on Amazon at only a fraction of the price. I had a look and I got a bottle of the liquid foundation for around £5, bargain! I ended up getting the shade 'very light' because the only other options were medium and dark and I thought they'd probably be too dark. However, I looked at swatches of very light and I knew it'd be too light but a fiver for going on high-end make up!

It arrived and as expected it it was far too light. It it basically white and I am pale and I did try it on it's own to see what the finish was like and how it blends etc. The colour made me look transparent!
The formula of the foundation is quite nice and creamy, but not at all runny. I didn't really like how it blended, it took me quite a while despite the packaging saying that it blends easily. The coverage is pretty light too and I prefer a full coverage, or as close as I can get. That being said it does seem to be quite build-able  The foundation is described as 'satin finish' which I agree with especially due the the coverage but I've said a million times on here that I prefer matte looks so I wasn't really getting on at all with this.


Then I remembered about the Rimmel Wake Me Up foundation I bought and sometimes I feel I should have got the shade lighter in it. In this post I'm wearing the Rimmel foundation.
I decided to try mix the two foundations together to see how that turned out...

You can see a massive difference between the two colours! I have the shade 103 True Ivory in the Rimmel and it's quite a nice foundation even though not a matte one and I'd probably repurchase to be honest but I'd definitely get Ivory next time.
Anyway, blended together these two foundations give the perfect colour for me! I am wearing this mix in this post. With them blended together, the Dainty Doll seems to make it slightly more matte because the Rimmel is quite dewy finish and the Rimmel ups the coverage given.

My main foundation is No.7 Beautifully Matte in Cool Vanilla and here's a (really bad, sorry!) photo to compare that to the mix.

Left: Dainty Doll/Rimmel mix | Right: No.7 

Not the greatest photo but the colours are so similar! The No.7 is obviously fully matte and does give me slightly better coverage so it depends how bad my skin is or if I have enough time to spend using two foundations as to which I use at the moment.

Dainty Doll make up is still available on Amazon at dirt cheap prices. I wouldn't buy the foundation again or probably any of the other foundation/powder products to be honest but I am intrigued by the lipsticks and blushes. Someone please cut up my bank card!
Have you tried Dainty Doll make up?