This beauty startup uses a highly accurate foundation-matching quiz to help you find the right shade — I found mine on the first try

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• Il Makiage has a foundation quiz that helps you find the right base makeup shade for your skin tone.
• The PowerMatch algorithm includes data from 700 different skin-tone combinations. 
• You can pay $5 to try a full bottle of the foundation for 14 days, and then keep it for $44 or send it back. 

Trying to find the right foundation that matches your skin tone can feel like rocket science sometimes. Thankfully, there’s a new beauty startup that has a solution and does all the work for you.

Your perfect match won’t be found through Bumble, Tinder, or Hinge, but rather through Il Makiage, a tech-focused beauty brand that uses machine learning to match your foundation shade to your skin tone all without ever actually seeing your face.

“We want to allow the consumer to avoid buying beauty products offline [with] the use of technology and machine learning,” CEO Oran Holtzman told Insider. “We decided to start with the hardest product to match — foundation — and launched the PowerMatch algorithm. The machine learning aspect of the algorithm is constantly improving and refining with each additional customer who takes the quiz.”

Read more: The best long lasting foundation you can buy for any skin tone

Il Makiage’s proprietary algorithm was more than a year in the making and leverages data from 700 different skin-tone combinations. The result is a quiz that is easy to use from the shoppers’ end and surprisingly accurate on the brand’s end. 

The quiz asks you about your skin tone, texture, and undertones, and once you’re done taking it, you’ll supposedly get the shade that’s right for you. The quiz is free but you can pay $5 to test a full-sized bottle of the Woke Up Like This Flawless Base Foundation in your shade for 14 days, after which you’ll be charged $44 if you decide to keep the product. If it wasn’t right for you, send it back to the company so it can be donated to the nonprofit Project Beauty Share, which provides beauty products to women in need.

I tried the PowerMatch quiz myself to see just how good a machine can get and I certainly wasn’t disappointed.

How the quiz works

While I’ve taken many foundation tests in my time, I found PowerMatch quiz to be unique in its user friendliness. Even if you know next to nothing about your skin or makeup regimen, the brand can help. You’ll start by answering basic questions about whether you have dry, oily, or combination skin, and what levels of coverage and finish you want. Il Makiage will give you a few understandable yet non-condescending pointers if you’re feeling a bit lost here as well as options to say that you have no idea.

Then you choose between photos of women with skin tones that visually match yours, and indicate your undertones, or use their prompts to help if you have no idea what undertones are. For example, after you say you have pink or cool undertones, the brand will ask if your veins appear to have a blue-ish or purple color, you burn easily in the sun, or look better in silver jewelry. If you answered yes to any or all of the above, chances are you’ve picked your undertones correctly. If none of those applied, then you’ll go back to the previous questions.

Read more: The best foundation you can buy for beautiful skin

Once you’ve completed the quiz, it’ll show your foundation match which you’ll be able to ship straight to your door for just $5. After all, even with the best of algorithms, the brand recognizes that you have to actually try on your foundation before committing to a full purchase.

It’s only after you’ve had the opportunity to try out your new foundation for 14 days that you’ll be charged the full $44 for the bottle in the shade you were sent. It puts you in a bind if the color isn’t right or you didn’t like the texture or formula, but I found that my foundation match was exactly what I needed so it was fine for me personally. We’ll have to see if I’m still singing the same tune come summer when I’m about five shades deeper, but maybe I’ll do the quiz again then and have a couple of different shades on hand.

The bottom line

The Flawless Base Foundation is super lightweight with vitamin E and hyaluronic acid for lots of hydration, and offers an impressive range of 50 shades. Each 1-ounce bottle should last several months with daily use, and at $44, it’s a reasonable price for pay for high-quality foundation that actually matches your skin tone. 

If you’re looking for a foundation that fits you instead of the other way around, Il Makiage may just be the right place to start your search.

Find your PowerMatch here.

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