Foundation may be defined as multi-colored makeup. It is mainly applied to the face so that your complexion gets an even color. Foundation is largely used to change the natural skin tone, and sometimes cover flaws.

A number of foundations present in the market these days also function as a moisturizer, sunscreen, base layer, or astringent. The foundation that is applied to the body is usually referred to as “body painting.”

Pan-Cake by Max Factor was the first foundation that was available commercially. Max Factor had the product patented in 1937, and it went on to become one of the most successful cosmetic launches of all time despite the economic turmoil of the era. It was estimated that by 1940, one in three North American women owned and wore Pan-Cake. This gave way to a lot of other cosmetic companies coming up with similar products.

Here are some of the important characteristics of modern-day foundations:

• Color
  The different colors that foundations come in today are identified by a number, letter, name, or a combination of the three at times. However, commercial cosmetic product names aren’t standardized. For example, if a make-up artist asks for a medium-beige foundation, the result can vary drastically from brand to brand and at times, within the same brand across different formulas.

• Color classification
  On the basis of the skin tone of the wearer, cosmetic companies classify their foundations into neutral, warm, or cool categories. On the other hand, a handful of professionals do the exact opposite and name their shades based on the extent to which they “cancel out” the wearer’s natural skin tone so as to not make them look excessively yellow or pale. In other words, a person with a cool skin tone will wear a warm foundation or vice-versa.

• Coverage
  Coverage refers to the opacity of makeup or how much it will conceal on the face. This can be divided into four categories, namely sheer, light, medium, and full.

Sheer:  This is the most transparent in comparison to the other categories and contains the least amount of pigment. It can minimize the contrast between any discolorations on the skin with the rest of the skin, but it will not completely hide the discoloration. The traditional protocol for sheer foundations called for the pigment to comprise at least 8-13% of the finished formula.

Light:  This category can cover slight blotchiness or unevenness in the skin, but it isn’t opaque enough to cover freckles, red marks, and discolorations left by pimples. This contains 13-18% pigment.

Medium:  When set with a tinted powder, medium foundations can cover discolorations, freckles, red marks, and blotchiness left by pimples. This category contains 18-23% pigment.

Full:  This type of coverage is highly opaque and can be used to cover skin-related issues such as vitiligo, hyperpigmentation, birthmarks and scars. In general, it contains almost 35% pigment, but a few professional brands can contain up to 50% pigment.

The cosmetic industry has been growing like no other over the decades. There has been an ever-increasing demand of foundation since it came out and a lot of alterations have been made in its formulation over time.