Jones Road What The Foundation has launched and we tried it out

There was an audible scream when the new Jones Road What The Foundation, £42 landed in the GTG office. Why you may ask. Well, firstly it’s created by makeup guru Bobbi Brown and everything she touches turns into beauty gold. But also because this is a foundation that beauty obsessives have been waiting for. And who doesn’t want to find the best foundation for glowing skin, which is most definitely what this foundation is aiming for.

What is Jones Road?

If you're unfamiliar with Jones Road, it is the brand that makeup artist Bobbi Brown created after selling her eponymous makeup line. The philosophy of the brand is that it creates products that are the makeup equivalent of the Swiss Army Knife: multi-functional, multi-purpose and can be used for any kind of makeup look. However, in general, Bobbi’s makeup aesthetic is very much a laid back, cool and chic but effortless look. And Jones Road WTF very much sits in that arena. It is a light coverage foundation that leaves your skin still looking like your skin but with a wash of colour to even out redness, discolouration and imperfections. It contains skin-nourishing ingredients like healing jojoba oil and hydrating sodium hyaluronate and feels very much like you’re applying a balmy cream that happens to be a foundation rather than a foundation that has a skincare element to it.

When Jones Road What The Foundation went viral

Jones Road WTF foundation launched in the US back in May and created a bit of a stir on TikTok partly due to makeup influencer and TikTokker, Meredith Duxbury using her ‘unique’ (aka incorrect) foundation application technique. Spoiler alert: she uses an obscene amount of product and it doesn’t go particularly well. Bobbi Brown posted a very gracious response, showing how ridiculous it is to use that volume of product but many other TikTokkers took to their channels to defend the brilliance of the product and demonstrate how it should be used.

However, there have been other occasions where some consumers haven’t always quite ‘got’ Jones Road products. The Miracle Balm, £36 for example is a tinted balm that can be used all over the face to make the skin look healthy, fresh and glowy. The only issue is that you have to break the waxy seal that sits on the top of the balm with the end of a makeup brush to ‘activate’ the colour underneath. If you don’t, nothing happens when you put it on the skin. But once you do, you are in glowy complexion heaven.

How to apply Jones Road What The Foundation

Unlike many other foundations, this creamy base comes in a screw lid pot and it has quite a runny consistency i.e if you tip the pot upside down, it will move and slide. You can buy The Spatula, £7 separately to scoop the product out onto the back of your hand and to prevent putting your fingers into the pot, but we predict most people will use their (clean) fingers to get it out. And when it comes to getting it on your skin it's up to you. Bobbi recommends applying it with The Skin Brush, £35 but fingers or a sponge would work equally well. 

Jones Road: What The Foundation shade range

There are 12 shades to choose from. The fairest being porcelain and the deepest being espresso. There is a handy 7-question shade finder quiz on the website that will help you identify the best match but the formula is quite sheer so we think each shade could easily span two or three skin tones.

Jones Road What The Foundation: our verdict

Get The Gloss Beauty Director, SJ tried out shade Light Clair, £40

“My requirements for a good foundation are for it to make me look healthy, glowy and like I'm not wearing foundation. Everything I had heard What The Foundation is about. It has a very creamy consistency. I did use the spatula but I’m inevitably going to end up losing that so will probably use my fingers to get it out of the pot and then buff it in with a brush. Because of that, it's not the most practical to apply on the go or on your commute but at home in my bathroom, I am winning. The first time I applied it, I used too much, you really do only need a small dab and because it's so creamy it blends like a dream so you can stretch it over quite a large surface area. I have quite a lot of redness on my skin and this gave enough coverage to conceal it as well as the pigmentation patches on my cheeks. This is not a full-coverage foundation so if that’s what you’re after, this is most definitely not for you, it's very much a light coverage however you can easily build it up to give medium. As it's so easy to move around the skin, I applied it under my eyes and around my nose and didn’t need any extra concealer, which is a major win in my book. I have combination skin and often by mid-afternoon I can easily drift into looking a bit too shiny however this seemed to keep on the right side of glowy all day. I only have a couple of negatives:

• The scent - it has quite a strong scent of essential oils, which isn't my cup of tea.
• A little bit tacky - it is balmy in consistency so it does leave a slight tackiness to the skin. If you're used to a flat, matte finish from your base this may take a little time to get used to
• Easy to go overboard - a little bit of this really does go a long way, which in fact is positive because this big pot will last a long time. I would recommend trying a 5p pieced size to start with and build up from there.

I totally understand why this product had so much hype around it before being available here but I also think it's not going to work for everyone.  It's not for those that like heavy coverage, I'm not sure how oily skins will fair with it as it might make the skin look too shiny and if you're always doing your makeup on the move this may seem too cumbersome and fiddly. However, if like me, you are looking for a base that feels very hydrating on the skin, creates a really great natural and glowy finish and that you can feel is doing some good to your skin at the same time then you're going to love it."