Biggest Beauty Rage: BB Cream

If you are like most girls I know at Bucknell, you want to put your best face forward when you walk into your 8 am classroom.  However, the morning fight of whether to sleep or put on makeup usually ends up in 15 more minutes in bed.   Wouldn’t it be great if there was a product that was quick, easy, and most importantly effective to put on in the mornings?  God morning, B.B. Cream!
BB Cream, standing for both “beauty balm” and “blemish-balm”, comes to the United States after growing popular in Asia.  What makes this cream so superhuman is that it is a 5-in-1 formula that gets you up and out the door before you can even say “beautiful.” The cream boasts the ability to hydrate, prime, perfect, control oil, and protect for the future. 
How does it do all of these things? Well, other than having magical qualities, BB Cream has many components:
 
Hydrate: The base of any B.B. cream is first a moisturizer.  Some of the creams are even made with 50% to give your face a drink all day long.  I would still recommend putting a lotion on your face in the evening, but B.B. creams moisturizer component allows you to skip this morning ritual.
 
Prime: The second great thing about B.B. cream is the primer that it contains.  Some of the brands, like Smashbox and Too Faced, contain optical pearl pigments that help to catch the light and turn it into a radiant glow.
 
Perfect: B.B cream is partially comprised of a foundation.  Although there are not a multitude of colors to choose from just yet, there are about five different shades.  Although options are slim, the creams are so transparent that they blend right into your skin color.
 
Control Oil:  Because the cream is part concealer, it not only hides those nasty little red bumps that show up from time to time, but also keeps the oily complex at bay. 
 
Protect: Never before had I heard of a cream that contained antioxidants and SPF in the same tube!  The antioxidants help to protect your skin against the outdoors, and any infections that could get in through pimples.  Antioxidants, over time, will also help reduce the appearance of fine lines.  What the antioxidants do not protect you against, the SPF will pick up.  Many B.B. creams contain a SPF ranging from 15-35. 
 
If all of this sounds too good to be true, it is not.  I was introduced to B.B cream over Spring Break, and I am never going back to my old morning routines.  B.B creams are made by Clinique, Smashbox, Too Faced, Dr. Jert+, along with several other brands, and can be purchased at Sephora.com.  Prices range from $32-39.  They are also slowly hitting pharmacy stores, such as CVS, from other brands, and can be purchased for around 8 to 55 dollars.