I Test Makeup for a Living, but I Can’t Stop Wearing This Tinted Serum

Ogee Complexion Perfecting Serum Foundation

At any given moment, at least one new product is on my face. It’s my job as a beauty editor to bring home all the stuff that crosses my desk and give it a fair shot to be able to give you, gentle reader, the lowdown on what’s worth it. And as Cosmo’s resident makeup expert, I tend to be the one slathering every trending complexion product on my face in the name of research.

For Cosmo’s 2026 Holy Grail Awards, we culled down the best complexion products of the year into eight categories, testing over 40 different formulas to decide our favorites. But before we even got to that list, I tested dozens of foundations, skin tints, tinted moisturizers, and more. I’m an overachiever, what can I say! And the biggest standout of everything I’ve tried is the Ogee Complexion Perfecting Serum Foundation. It’s lightweight and fresh with surprisingly great coverage. Best part? It’s lowkey a skincare product, too. (Hence why it won “best tinted moisturizer.”) Let me explain.

ogee.com

Why it won a 2026 Holy Grail Beauty Award:

About the formula:

Ogee’s Complexion Perfecting Serum Foundation is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: a lightweight, liquid foundation packed with skincare that offers light-to-medium coverage. Funnily enough, the product won “best tinted moisturizer” in our beauty awards because it doesn’t really behave like a foundation. The formula is 100 percent natural (and 75 percent organic) and loaded with moisturizing, plumping, and soothing skincare ingredients. There’s antioxidant-rich vitamin C (important for anti-aging and hyperpigmentation), anti-inflammatory gooseberry fruit juice, nourishing jojoba oil, brightening daisy flower, and a whole slew of other nutrient-dense botanical extracts. It’s more of a skincare product than anything, really.

But, of course, there’s a tint that offers up light coverage, medium if you build it up (I’ll explain more on this below). Said tint comes in 20 shades, ranging from cool-toned fair to light-tan olive to warm dark bronze to deep cocoa hues. These shades are fairly flexible, too, thanks to the sheer coverage, so you don’t need to be so precise with shade matching. Once applied, it leaves skin looking dewy but still with a natural, skin-like finish.

About my skin

My preferences for foundation have changed drastically over the last year as my skin has gone through a lot of hormonal changes. Six months ago, I was raving up and down about matte foundations with full coverage to hide my acne and keep my T-zone from looking too oily. Fast-forward to mid-2026, and I have (mostly) controlled my cystic acne and am experiencing a little more dryness than normal. Heavy, high-coverage picks just don’t feel good on my face anymore. Instead, I want something that truly looks like my real skin, just perfected. And I’m unfortunately sensitive, so I also have to be wary of pore-clogging ingredients or anything too thick on my face.

My review

When I first pump this into my hand, it’s quite runny. This is a true liquid foundation, not a cream or gel. So be careful when you pump it out to avoid getting any on your clothes (the amount of white t-shirts I’ve destroyed with foundation should be a crime). But this texture is precisely why I love it so much. It feels so damn good on my skin.

It’s honestly unlike any other foundation I’ve used. The consistency is almost identical to a lot of my hydrating face serums, and it blends into my skin just like those, too. But it offers up a light tint that I can layer for more coverage.

The first time I tested, I used Ogee’s Base Brush, a very densely packed foundation brush. And it was fine! But I really loved it with a fluffier brush (I am obsessed with Makeup By Mario’s F4, another Holy Grail Award winner). This gave me a softer look and didn’t eat up so much of the foundation, making one pump go a little farther.

Because the texture is so thin, it spreads really well across my whole face without needing much product. And it looks so seamless. It blends out like butter (I can tell there’s an oil in this formula by how smooth it looks on my skin), and it completely erases any texture I have. I still cover up some acne scars or active zits with a concealer, but every concealer I’ve used with this has melted into the texture just fine.

In all, my skin just looks so perfected but feels like I’m not even really wearing anything—something I love so much in a foundation these days. I already anticipate I’ll use this all summer long. It looks just as good for a normal day at the office as it does for a fancy dinner or a night out. I wore it for eight hours, from cleaning my apartment to watching the Knicks sweep the Sixers at a bar with friends, and it looked flawless when I came home two beers deep.

Another Cosmo editor’s review

Need more convincing? Senior designer Khadija Horton also tested this for our Holy Grail Awards and loved it. “This feels super lightweight and hydrating on my skin and blends very easily,” she says. “I get compliments that my skin is glowing on days I use it.”

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Beth Gillette is the beauty editor at Cosmopolitan with eight years of experience researching, writing, and editing stories on hair, makeup, and nails.

Beth Gillette

Beth Gillette is the beauty editor at Cosmopolitan, where she covers skincare, makeup, hair, nails, and more across digital and print. She can generally be found in bright eyeshadow furiously typing her latest feature or hemming and hawing about a new product you "have to try." Prior to Cosmopolitan, she wrote and edited beauty content as an Editor at The Everygirl for four years. Follow her on Instagram for makeup selfies and a new hair 'do every few months.