Review: SEPHORA+PANTONE COLOR IQ

I've heard a lot about the (relatively) new foundation color matching service that Sephora offers, so today I dragged a friend along to go try it out. Sephora advertises Color IQ as a service that will give you a 100% foundation shade match in under five minutes, and the service promises that you will never wear the wrong shade foundation again (see more here). Sounds great, right? There's nothing worse than dropping fifty bucks on a foundation that promises it will turn my face into unicorns and rainbows and instead ends up turning my face into an orange grease ball. Read about my experience below.

• The process:
• Finding a consultant to help at Sephora has never been a challenge, and today was no exception. A woman named Sarah agreed to help my friend and I with the color matching. 
• Using a handheld contraption (it sort of looks like a mini price-scanner), Sarah took 3 pictures of my face by holding the price scanner flush with my skin on my cheek, forehead, and chin. 
• Quickly, the machine calculated that I'm the shade 1R05- later, Sarah told me that the 1R means that my skin has a slightly red undertone (the higher the number in front of the letter, the more evident the undertone) and the second number (05 in my case) refers to the actual shade of my skin (I'm pretty fair, but not glowing). 
• We typed the number into an iPad on display, and a host of foundations popped up. We were then able to filter through the selections based upon formula (liquid, powder, or cream), coverage (light, medium, full), etc. 
• I decided to try out two of the recommended foundations- Lancome Tient Idole Ultra and Clinique Stay Matte Oil Free Make-Up. 

• The results
• After her expert application, Sarah and I agreed in the store that the Lancome foundation looked nice on my skin, and I picked up a sample to take home and try it out on my own.
• We swatched the Clinque foundation on my skin and immediately cleaned it off as it looked- get this- ORANGE!
• Looking in the mirror at the store, I love the Lancome foundation. The color seemed great, the foundation had successfully neutralized any redness, and when I left the store, I was feeling awesome in my new foundation- the finish of this stuff is awesome. Despite the miss with the Clinique foundation, I was thinking that the Color IQ service was great. I got in my car and drove away, satisfied. 
• After having the foundation on for about 30 minutes, I checked myself out in my car mirror. And what did I discover? The dreaded foundation line. Seriously. It was there. My face was one color and my neck was another. 

• Final thoughts
• Pros- I like that you can filter the results by formulation, coverage, etc; I like that you can take your color IQ number and type it in online for future purchases; the benefit of a consultant (especially in choosing foundations) is always a plus 
• Cons- the system didn't actually match me correctly! The friend that I brought along wasn't properly matched either; after getting her pictures taken, the consultant actually changed my friend's numbers ("I actually don't think you're that red, let's change it...You're not quite that dark, let's drop it down a number")
• Overall, I think that the Color IQ system is a bit of a gimmick- a ploy to bring people into the store. For me, the system did not meet it's 100% match claim, and in fact- missed the mark on both foundations that I tried. 

Has anyone out there tried the Color IQ service? What did you think?