Laura Geller is a popular cosmetics brand that sells a wide variety of products and is often featured on QVC. The brand was founded by a makeup artist and there’s even a community of devoted customers that call themselves Geller Gals.
But are Laura Geller products better than regular cosmetic products you could find at a drugstore or Ulta? Does the brand contain any questionable chemical additives? And how do real users rate Laura Geller products?
In this article we’ll answer all of these questions and more as we review the ingredients in some of Laura Geller’s most popular products from a health perspective. We’ll review Laura Geller foundation and Laura Geller blush, sharing real customer reviews of both products.
Laura Geller Baked Foundation Review
The most popular Laura Geller product is called Baked Balance-n-Brighten Color Correcting Foundation. It has a number of questionable additive ingredients that we recommend avoiding.
Ethylhexyl methoxycinnamate is an ingredient more commonly referred to as octinoxate, and was shown in a medical review published in the Journal of Applied Toxicology to be toxic to the environment and to wildlife. This ingredient was recently banned in Hawaii over toxicity concerns.
Phenoxyethanol is a synthetic preservative. As we referenced in our review of Seint Makeup, this ingredient has been shown to be toxic to human cells in a clinical study.
Chromium oxide green is a synthetic colorant containing the mineral chromium, which was shown in a clinical review to cause contact allergy, skin ulcers and swelling of the skin in some individuals.
This formulation does contain some anti-aging ingredients such as Camellia sinensis leaf extract which was shown in a review published in the Molecules journal to delay visible signs of skin aging like wrinkles.
Overall we do not recommend Laura Geller Baked Foundation due to the presence of three additive ingredients with questionable health effects.
One of the most popular YouTube reviews of this product is published by a creator named “BeyondTheSkinWithMichelle.” The review appears unsponsored and she shares her experience using this foundation, including a live product demo:
Laura Geller Blush Review
Another top seller from Laura Geller’s line is their blush product, called Baked Blush-n-Brighten Marbleized Blush.
This product contains two of the additive ingredients we already highlighted in the previous section (phenoxyethanol and ethylhexyl methoxycinnamate) but has an even worse formulation from a health perspective in our opinion.
Red 7 Lake and Yellow 5 Lake are synthetic dyes that we consider to be even worse choices than the chromium oxide green used in the foundation. A 2012 medical review found that Yellow 5 was frequently contaminated with carcinogens (cancer-causing compounds).
The study focused on the ingestion of these compounds, but we do not recommend using synthetic dyes on the face either, given that there was “evidence for carcinogenicity, genotoxicity, and hypersensitivity.”
We do not recommend this product due to the inclusion of synthetic dye and other questionable additives.
A YouTuber named Kristi Bergman published a review of this product that focused more on the aesthetic effects than the health effects. The video is only 5 minutes long and includes a live product demo:
Highly Questionable Marketing Practice
After viewing the Laura Geller website in our research for this article, we started receiving marketing emails from the brand. We never opted in to these emails nor was there any clear notice that our use of their site would opt us into incessant email spam.
We very strongly disagree with this practice and we recommend that consumers avoid brands that do this to disincentivize the behavior. It's highly disruptive and not respectful of a user's privacy.
We urge Laura Geller to stop sending marketing emails to individuals that simply visit their website but do not opt in to marketing emails, and we would recommend that consumers set on purchasing from this brand do so on Amazon to avoid this negative experience.
Can Makeup Ruin the Skin?
Given that commercial makeup contains a number of questionable ingredients, consumers are often curious about whether its daily use can ruin the skin over time.
In a popular YouTube video, a dermatologist named Dr. Dray reviews claims made by actress Jessica Chastain that makeup ruined her skin:
Our Clean Beauty Recommendation
We recommend a product called Ilia True Skin Serum Foundation as our top clean beauty pick for makeup and bronzer.
Like Seint, this product is naturally colored with iron oxides and free of questionable additive ingredients like fragrance and artificial dye that are common in commercial cosmetics.
Ilia’s makeup has natural ingredients beneficial for skin health like aloe vera juice, coconut and jojoba seed oil.
Ilia’s makeup is free of the preservative phenoxyethanol in Laura Geller and is also free of synthetic dyes. While it does contain two preservatives (ethylhexylglycerin and sodium benzoate) we consider these to be less harsh options than the preservative in Laura Geller.
We would prefer to recommend a preservative-free makeup product but have not come across one. If we do, we will update this section of the article with that recommendation.
Interested consumers can check out Ilia True Skin Serum Foundation at this Amazon link, where it’s available in many shades.
Laura Geller Real Customer Reviews
Laura Geller products are sold on Amazon which is a more objective resource for customer reviews than a brand’s website in our opinion.
The brand’s most popular product on Amazon is their Baked Foundation which has been reviewed over 13,000 times. The product has an average review rating of 4.2 out of 5 stars.
The top positive review from a verified purchaser comes from a user named “Bridgette A White” who appreciates how easy to use the product is:
“As a special effects creator I love good products that feel natural and easy to apply. I was amazed at how easy this goes on and is even better than the mineral makeup I have been using for 15 years faithfully. Smooth and blends will with bronzer/blush and stayed on all night.”
The top negative review from a verified purchaser is written by a user named “Lorraine” who was unsatisfied with the product’s coverage:
“I finally fell for the ad with Patricia Heaton. I saw ads for this product daily on Facebook. I've been happy with my clean, fine powder makeup, Lily Lolo mineral foundation for years. But Heaton's ad made me wonder if I could do better. I bought it on Amazon so I wouldn't have to pay shipping. I tried it on twice. It looked bad both times. There isn't much coverage. A finer powder gives better coverage.”
