New Haul, Big Feelings: Why I'm Genuinely Giddy About Makeup by Mario Right Now

There are days when teaching special ed, wrangling three kids, and squeezing in a bridal trial all happen before 6 PM. And then there are days when a package shows up at the door and I do a little shimmy in my hallway like nobody's watching.

This was one of those days.

This is my actual face when the beauty order arrives. Zero shame.

I ordered a pretty significant haul of Makeup by Mario Surreal Skin Foundation and I am not even a little sorry about it. Four shades: 7C, 4.5N, 2N, and 8N. I grabbed that many because I want to test the full range of what this formula does across different complexions. As a bridal artist, I rarely get to walk into a booking with just one foundation shade. I need to build a kit that works across skin tones, not just my own.

So yes, I bought four. And it felt responsible.

Why Makeup by Mario caught my attention

Mario Dedivanovic built his reputation doing some of the most photographed faces on the planet. When he launched his own line, I was curious but skeptical. Celebrity-adjacent brands have a way of coasting on name recognition while the formulas themselves are pretty middling.

The Surreal Skin Foundation kept showing up in conversations with other working artists, though. And when actual pros start talking about something, I listen. The formula is described as a serum-foundation hybrid, which means it's designed to feel lightweight and skin-like rather than sitting on top of the face like a mask. For brides especially, that matters enormously. You want the makeup to look like really good skin, not a layer of product.

I'm also genuinely curious about how the shade range performs. The 7C and 8N are on the deeper end, while 2N is quite fair. Getting shade 4.5N in there gives me a solid mid-range neutral. Between those 4, I can start color matching, mixing, and figuring out where this foundation actually earns its place in my kit.

The four foundation shades, ready to be put through their paces.

The concealers are coming with me

I also grabbed 4 shades of the Makeup by Mario Surreal Skin Awakening Concealer: shades 120, 140, 160, and 220. The "Awakening" name is doing some heavy lifting there, but the formula is built around brightening and hydrating the under-eye area, which is a real need for a lot of my clients.

Under-eye concealer is genuinely one of the hardest products to get right on mature skin. It has to be hydrating enough that it doesn't settle into fine lines, but it also can't be so emollient that it creases by hour two. I've seen a lot of products claim to thread that needle and fail spectacularly. (If you want my full thinking on that, I went deep on it in the concealer making your dry under eyes look worse and the ones that actually fix them.)

I'm going in with open eyes. The range of shades I picked should let me evaluate how the formula sits on different undertones, which is really the only way to know if a concealer is going to be universally useful.

The skin prep piece that never leaves my kit

Okay, real talk: one of my absolute non-negotiables in this haul is the Embryolisse Lait-Crème. This is a French pharmacy staple that has been in my kit for years, and I genuinely cannot imagine working without it.

Skin prep is everything. I've said it before and I'll keep saying it: you can have the most expensive foundation in the world and if the skin underneath is dry, dehydrated, or just not prepped well, the makeup is going to look wrong. The Embryolisse is a multitasking moisturizer that I use as both a moisturizer and a primer base. It creates that soft, slightly nourished canvas that lets foundation apply like actual skin rather than dragging or pilling.

What I love about it specifically is how it performs on every skin type I work on. Dry skin drinks it up and stops looking tight. Combination skin doesn't go greasy. And on mature skin, where so many primers either sit in creases or disappear entirely by hour three, it gives the face just enough slip that everything on top of it moves and blends the way it's supposed to. It's also fragrance-free and gentle enough for my most sensitive-skinned brides, which matters more than people realize.

Backstage artists have been reaching for this for decades, and there's a reason it has never gone away. It just works. If you are a working artist and this isn't in your kit, fix that. And if you're not a working artist but you want your foundation to look genuinely good instead of just applied, this is the prep step that makes the difference.

I specifically want to test it under the Surreal Skin Foundation and see what that pairing does. The foundation is designed to look like good skin, and the Embryolisse sets up the canvas to receive product beautifully, so that combination should be interesting. (For more on what actually belongs in your skin prep routine before makeup, Your Makeup Keeps Sliding Off Because You're Skipping These 5 Crucial Skin Prep Steps is worth a read.)

Cleaning brushes between faces: the unglamorous necessity

I also picked up Cinema Secrets Professional Brush Cleaner. This one is a kit staple that I've cycled in and out of over the years depending on what I was using at the time.

For anyone who doesn't do makeup professionally, the challenge of working on multiple people in one day is that you cannot use the same brush on one face and then put it directly on the next without cleaning it first. Not even close. You need something that dries almost instantly so you're not standing there waiting for your brushes to be ready while your bride is sitting in the chair.

Cinema Secrets is a liquid brush cleaner that does exactly that. It removes product, dries fast, and gets the brushes ready for the next application without the 8-hour drying time of a deep wash. It's not glamorous content. But it's the kind of thing that separates a professional kit from a hobby kit.

What comes next

I'm going to work through these properly. That means testing the foundation on myself first, then on a range of skin tones before I bring it to any clients. The Embryolisse is already doing its thing in my morning routine. The Cinema Secrets is already in my kit bag.

And the concealers? Those are getting tested the hardest. Under-eye coverage with a formula that stays put all day is genuinely one of the most common questions I get, and the answer changes depending on the skin. I want to know what Makeup by Mario's version does before I recommend it to anyone.

I'll report back. But right now, in this moment, I'm just happy. A new haul, products I'm genuinely curious about, and the particular joy of knowing there are several good testing sessions ahead of me. This is the part of the job I love most.

Some people decompress with wine. I decompress with foundation swatches. We are who we are.

If you want to know what I actually think once I've put these through their paces, subscribe to the CosmeticsIntel newsletter. No fluff, no filler, just honest notes from a working artist who buys her own products and tells you exactly what happened.