Cover Girl At-A-Glance
Strengths: Inexpensive and widely available; a hugely improved selection of foundations, several with reliable sunscreen; good concealers; enviable pressed powders; some fantastic mascaras; mostly great eyelining options; a vast selection of lip color options, from the long-wearing Outlast to sheer lip glosses.
Weaknesses: The older foundations are seriously lacking; the newer Advanced Radiance foundations have great textures but disappointing SPF ratings; Professional Loose Powder; powder blush and eyeshadows; terrible makeup brushes; all of the “Clean” products contain irritating ingredients.
Since 1961, Cover Girl has been slowly building a portfolio of cosmetics that today is about as all-encompassing as a makeup line can be. Originating from the same “medicated” ingredients found in Noxzema Skin Cream (which was never medicated in the least, but seriously irritating for skin), the debut products are still available, albeit with slight modifications. The good news is that for the past several years Cover Girl has consistently updated their line with some very impressive products, especially their foundations, concealers, and vastly improved pressed powders. They also offer some excellent eye and lip pencils, respectable traditional lipsticks (including one with reliable UVA protection and SPF 15) and lip gloss, and one of the all-time best long-wearing lip paints, Outlast.
What’s puzzling is that although many of Cover Girl’s latest products are progressive, they tend to hang on to the lackluster-to-poor options, including abysmal powder blush and eyeshadows and their long-standing, very irritating Clean Makeup. These items may be part of Cover Girl’s humble beginnings, but you certainly don’t see parent company Procter & Gamble adding eucalyptus oil and menthol to their Olay products or to products of any of the other cosmetics companies they own. If those ingredients were so important, why not use them everywhere? Needless to say, the great products seriously outnumber the disappointments, and the prices make it easy for those on a budget to be beautiful and enjoy some state-of-the-art products, provided they shop wisely.
Cover Girl’s Web site is extremely easy to navigate, and presents a wealth of product information, along with practical (if somewhat cutesy) tips and tricks for successful makeup application and for finding the shades that work best for you. Cover Girl’s consumer relations department is consistently helpful if you have any questions or concerns. For example, if one of your favorite items was discontinued, you might want to know what replaced it, and they will let you know. Such service and customer concern is yet another powerful reason to believe Cover Girl really has its (class) act together.
For more information about Cover Girl, owned by Procter & Gamble, call (800) 426-8374 or visit the Web site at
www.covergirl.com.