BB cream — also known as beauty balm, or blemish balm — is a combination of foundation makeup, face moisturizer, and sunscreen.
It offers the hydrating and protecting effects of a face moisturizer as well as the anti-aging and anti-skin damage benefits of a sunblock, all with a wide color range of foundation makeup that will greatly simplify your morning routine.
Looking for the best BB creams on the market? Our research team has ranked the ten best right here according to their quality.
1. NARS Pure Radiant Tinted Moisturizer
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NARS makes an excellent BB cream that comes in 11 different shades for wide skin tone coverage. It’s also got full-powered sun protection with an SPF rating of 30.
No need to fear premature aging and skin damage with this BB cream. Glycerin helps keep moisture at the skin’s surface, and the sunblocking comes entirely from titanium dioxide, which is much better than an oxybenzone-based sunblock.
The titanium dioxide also has the added benefit of brightening up your complexion without too much shine. These all add up to make NARS a superior choice for a daily-use BB cream.
2. MISSHA M Perfect Cover BB Cream
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MISSHA M Perfect Cover BB Cream comes in five different shades and offers great sun protection, with an SPF rating of 42.
Thanks to the beeswax, mineral oil, and glycerin, there is plenty of moisturizing power in this BB cream, and users love its ability to moisturize and tint without aggravating sensitive skin.
Many people flock to MISSHA M after being frustrated with other brands–either they don’t control breakouts, or their moisturizing effects are lacking. MISSHA M Perfect Cover BB Cream performs both of these with ease.
3. bareMinerals Complexion Rescue
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bareMinerals Complexion Rescue is a great BB cream that has a wide range of skin tone coverage shades available and has excellent sun protection, with an SPF rating of 30.
This sun protection comes purely from titanium dioxide, and that compound will help brighten your skin tone as well. Not only that, but bareMinerals Complexion Rescue has moisturizers derived primarily from coconut to keep your skin hydrated.
Users love how easy it is to accomplish a light, even coverage with this BB cream, which all sums up to make this one of our top picks.
4. Maybelline Dream Pure BB Cream
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Maybelline Dream Pure BB Cream is a BB cream that adds in an exfoliating, anti-acne effect thanks to its inclusion of salicylic acid.
This is one of the most effective anti-acne compounds, thanks to the way it encourages dead skin cells to shed more quickly instead of accumulating on the skin and clogging up pores.
The downside of including the salicylic acid is that it’s more likely to aggravate dry or sensitive skin, and it doesn’t have the usual sun blocking protection that you’d expect from a BB cream.
Still, it fulfills a well-needed role for people with oily skin who are prone to breakouts yet still want to simplify their skincare routine with a BB cream.
5. Laura Mercier Tinted Moisturizer
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Laura Mercier Tinted Moisturizer scores points for coming in a wide range of shades, and its heavy focus on moisturizing.
There are several different powerful moisturizers in this BB cream that make it a favorite among users with very dry skin.
Its ability to block damage from sunlight is only fair, though, with an SPF rating of 20. It may not last all day, and users with very fair skin might find themselves with a bit of sunburn after a long time outside.
6. Tarte Amazonian Clay BB Tinted Moisturizer
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Tarte Amazonian Clay is a high end BB cream that uses a combination of zinc oxide and titanium dioxide to achieve a decent SPF rating of 20 and comes in seven shades that have a fairly good range of skin tones.
The lightest and darkest skin tones might be out of luck, but aside from that, they have good coverage. Users like the texture and the ability of the clay-like compounds to fill in fine lines and wrinkles in the skin.
This is thanks to the kaolin content of the BB cream, which is a type of clay that gives Tarte its trademark texture and wrinkle filling ability.
7. Skin79 BB Super + BeBlemish Balm Gold Label
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Skin79 is a complex BB cream that tries to do a lot, with varied success. It has a very solid SPF 30 rating, meaning it will block sunlight very effectively, and it has a wide range of moisturizers that also help rejuvenate and heal skin, like sweet almond oil and a wide range of herbal extracts.
The grandiose design vision might be a bit too much for some people: Skin79 BB Super + Blemish Balm Gold Label gets its name because gold is literally one of the ingredients, and it’s also got caviar extract if that weren’t enough.
Setting aside the issue of whether or not these are more of a marketing stunt than a cosmetic necessity, Skin 79’s BB cream does a fair job at both hydrating skin and protecting it from sun damage.
8. Dr. Jart+ Black Label Detox BB Beauty Balm
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The BB cream from Dr. Jart+ Black Label is a great fit–if it fits your skin tone, and if you like the natural, low-coverage look. Dr. Jart+ Black Label Detox Bb Beauty Balm comes in just one tone, so you’ve got to be okay with subtle coverage, or you’ve got to be exceptionally lucky if you want to use a lot of it.
It is good for sensitive skin, but not for oily skin–users find that it has a tendency to slide around if they put any makeup on after using the BB cream.
While all this means that only a narrow slice of people will find this BB cream useful, it’s nevertheless a good option for them.
9. COVERGIRL Smoothers Lightweight BB Cream
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COVERGIRL is one of the most popular drug store brands of BB cream, but it’s got some serious shortcomings that knock it down in the rankings.
For starters, the SPF rating is’t very high, at only 15. It’s not likely to provide adequate sun protection, especially for people with fair skin who are prone to getting sunburned. On top of that, its moisturizing properties aren’t particularly strong.
It does an adequate job for most people, but it doesn’t have the same high quality moisturizing oils you’d see in a top-tier product. Still, many people rely on it for their day-to-day BB cream when they don’t have any particular reason to break out their favorite makeup products.
10. NYX Professional Makeup BB Cream
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NYX Professional Makeup BB Cream is mostly foundation; it’s a bit short on the hydrating ingredients, and it doesn’t have any sun blocking protection.
Though a BB cream with an SPF rating isn’t always necessary (if you are going out in the evening, for example), not having quality moisturizers and not having a sun blocking ingredient somewhat defeats the purpose of using BB cream instead of just foundation.
On top of that, the shade selection is very limited, so only a small range of people will find that NYX Professional Makeup BB Cream pairs with their skin tone well.
Part Two: BB cream benefits and side effects
If putting on a separate face moisturizer, makeup foundation, and sunblock lotion every morning is feeling like a bit much for you to manage, you might need a BB cream in your life.
This ingenious cosmetic combines all three into one product that can hydrate your skin, cover up blemishes and imperfections on your face, and protect you from sun damage.
Benefits
The primary skin care benefits of BB cream revolve around its ability to moisturize your skin and protect it from damage from sunlight. These are what make BB cream an attractive choice over just using foundation makeup by itself.
As you likely know, a face moisturizer plays a pivotal role in any skin care routine. A good BB cream will achieve both of the goals of moisturization, which are the restoration of the skin’s protective lipid layer and the incorporation of more water into the outermost layer of skin.
A scientific article published by dermatologist Marie Loden in the American Journal of Clinical Dermatology states that an ideal moisturizer is one that contains fats that help reinforce the skin’s lipid layer, which is a barrier against water loss (1).
Compounds like mineral oil and beeswax help accomplish this. Not only that; a successful moisturizer should help draw water into the outermost layer of the skin.
By doing so, these compounds, which include glycerin and alpha hydroxy acids, increase the softness and suppleness of the outermost layer of skin (2). When combined with the makeup foundation provided by your BB cream, this helps lead to the smooth and even skin appearance that you want.
The other purpose of BB cream is reducing or eliminating the damage that can occur in your skin when it’s exposed to sunlight.
It’s no secret that damage from the sun’s ultraviolet rays is the primary cause of skin aging. The reasons for this are detailed in a 2000 article published by researchers in Germany in the scientific journal Experimental Gerontology (3).
In it, the researchers detail the precise mechanism by which ultraviolet light leads to aging.
Sunlight generates reactive oxygen species in your skin cells (the same kind of destructive chemicals implicated in other aging-related conditions like heart disease and cancer) and these reactive oxygen species cause damage to the connective tissue that holds your skin together.
This explains why “photoaging”–the scientific term for skin aging that results from sun exposure–causes loose, wrinkly, and discolored skin.
The authors of the paper specifically recommend regular use of broad spectrum sunscreen, as it will drastically reduce the amount of aging your skin experiences. A wrinkle cream could help too.
As for the SPF rating you should aim for in your BB cream, Dr. Steven Wang at the Skin Cancer Foundation recommends using sunscreen with an SPF rating of 30 or above (4).
If you aren’t going to be out in the sun for long stretches of time, you can probably push this down to an SPF rating of 25 or so if you’d like.
Side Effects
As with any moisturizer, makeup foundation, or sunscreen, BB cream shares the same primary side effect–adverse skin reactions.
Simply by virtue of the fact that BB cream has more ingredients than separate single-purpose cosmetics, it’s more likely to cause skin aggravation.
If you get acne breakouts, excessive dryness, or a rash, that’s probably an indication that something in the BB cream you are using is not reacting well with your skin.
It can be very hard to pin down what the specific ingredient is, but one of the more common culprits is a fragrance or perfume.
A major study published in 1996 in the American Journal of Contact Dermatitis by a collaboration of researchers across six countries detailed the rise of perfume and fragrance-related skin irritation in cosmetic products (5).
In it, the authors showed that many of the most common irritants were essential oils of exotic plants like ylang ylang and sandalwood, which are often used in fragrances for cosmetic products, including BB cream.
If you don’t tolerate a BB cream well, check its ingredients to see what plant extracts and oils are present. Then try a different brand that doesn’t have the same type of ingredients.
Recap
A BB cream is a great way to combine makeup foundation, skin moisturizer, and sun protection into your daily cosmetic routine.
With one application, you’ve covered up blemishes, moisturized your skin, and protected your face from ultraviolet light. A good BB cream will have an SPF rating of 30 or above if possible (though somewhere in the mid-20s is usually fine too), and will use quality moisturizing oils to lock in water and restore the protective lipid layer to your skin.
It can be tricky to find the right BB cream that accomplishes these tasks adequately and pairs well with your skin tone, but the convenience of three products in one is worth it.
https://bodynutrition.org/bb-cream/
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