Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics – OCC Tint Tinted Moisturizer review

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tinted moisturizer junkies, meet your new obsession..

Two OCC Tint Tinted Moisturizer photos: we heart this

My can’t-live-without-it makeup product, hands down, is tinted moisturizer. I first discovered tinted moisturizers a few years ago and haven’t once gone back to using a foundation. I use it every single day and love the fact I can apply it and quickly even out my skin tone and still look natural.

Tinted moisturizers come in many shapes and sizes. I’ve tried a lot, and in my personal experience they are NOT created equally. I was thrilled when I got to test Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics OCC Tint as I have read many wonderful things about this company (most of the gushing right here on we heart this!)

OCC has 12 shades of OCC Tint available, divided into yellow and red shades. This is a huge plus in my book. So many times, I find a tinted moisturizer I love, yet with only a few colors available, I am unable to find the perfect match for my skin tone. OCC has made sure you will find the perfect match with their wide variety of shades. Added bonus? 100% vegan and cruelty free!

With OCC, what you see is what you get. Versus trying to use a cool shade to neutralize warm skin (or visa versa). OCC founder David Klasfeld told us “Ys (Yellow) and Rs (Reds) are meant to match their respective skintones, so those with more predominant yellow undertones in their skin would use a yellow-based shade, and those with more red undertones in their skin would use a red-based shade.”

Each group is broken up in a very easy to navigate number system. Here’s the breakdown of the numbers; Palest: 0, Pale: 1, Medium Light: 2, Medium Dark: 3, Dark: 4, Darkest: 5. With either a Y (yellow) or R (red) in front of the number.

I tested Y3 which is Medium Dark for a yellow based skin tone. This shade was the perfect match for my olive skin tone. The yellow undertones help to cancel out the redness my skin tends to have and leaves me with a flawless complexion.

OCC Tint Tinted Moisturizer Collection from left: Y0, Y1, Y2, Y3, Y4 and Y5

OCC Tint Tinted Moisturizer swatches yellow tones, same order as above

OCC Tint super easy to apply especially using a brush. I apply just a pea size evenly to my face and begin blending in with the brush. Before I know it, I have a nice even coverage. Best of all, OCC Tint is build-able which means if you need a little more coverage all you have to do is apply another layer of product. I found that typically I apply two layers to get the coverage perfect for me.

By nature, tinted moisturizers should leave you feeling moisturized. OCC Tint definitely took this into consideration, containing unique moisturizers consisting of coconut and acai extract. Best of all it is free of oils, silicones, and parabens, which our skin thanks us for.

OCC Tint Tinted Moisturizer collectionfrom left: R0, R1, R2, R3, R4 and R5

OCC Tint Tinted Moisturizer swatchesred tones, same order as above

Pros:
• Oil and silicone free, not once has it caused me to break out.
• Build-able color.
• Wide range of shades broken down into yellow and red tones.
• Moisturizing formula made from Coconut and Açaí Extract.

Cons:
• No SPF.
• Thinner consistency than most tinted moisturizers, so you might use more product than you normally do.
• Bottle is fairly small and only comes in a 1 oz. size.

Overall, I think OCC Tint is just about as perfect as they come. And, a worthy new obsession. we heartsters and testers, do you agree?

Disclosure: This review includes products that were provided by the manufacturer/PR firm for our consideration. For more info, or any questions, please see our disclosure policy.

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32 Comments

  1. I actually really liked the consistency of this tinted moisturizer and didn’t feel like I used more. I wish the bottle was different. I’ve found that after every few uses the knob gets clogged and I end up squirting tinted moisturizer all over myself and my bathroom. Not fun.

  2. I’ve come to recognize OCC for its amazingly bold and colorful products–I never would have thought to look to them for my base! I’m a die-hard Bare Minerals foundation user but even I look to tinted moisturizers for summertime day wear when I wouldn’t normally user foundation at all. I’m certainly game to tive this a go…

  3. As a pale girl, I really liked this tinted moistuizer. It did not clog my sensitive skin or make it feel wierd. Sometimes, tinted products make my face feel clogged, oily or even dry. I like the simple packaging of OCC–I would much rather the company spend money on the product than the packaging.

    I do wish this had SPF–I spend a lot of time in the car and want as much protection from the sun as possible.

    4 stars

  4. Can I gush too? I love this company and its products. I got to test the OCC Tint to which I’ve become a huge fan and love using everyday.. I’m also a fan of tinted moisturizers in general but this one has me very happy. I matched well with R-2 (medium light) making my skin tone look natural and fresh it also did well on its own and is perfect for achieving that super fresh feeling. I’d like to see OCC include a sunscreen and changeup the container in the future so it won’t clog in the spout. I would buy this if I were you! I will too. Five Stars *****

  5. What camera did you use to take these pictures?

    1. I shoot with a Cannon Powershot SD880 IS, which is a point and shoot with a wide angle lens. I heart my camera!

  6. @tiffany – This post is great, but I would like to correct you on one minor (well, major) point. Yellow tones are for cool girls, red are warm girls. It’s a popular misconception. If you think about it, it makes sense. When your warm toned, you absolutely CANNOT wear red (or pink) for the most part without all the red flushing out of your skin. When your as cool-toned as I am, wearing yellow makes you look jaundiced.

    I have a forum post all about skin undertones here. I do need to update it a bit (if I say I’m going to put something up, I should put it up and not forget about it. I completely, utterly forgot), but it’s a great resource for anyone trying to understand the world of undertones or determine their own undertone!

    1. Katie would you not think I’m a warm toned? Look at my profile pic…naturally tan, dark hair and eyes. I also get lots of compliments when I wear red. I’ve always been told I’m warm and I’ve had my “colors” done many times. Maybe all these years I’ve actually been mislead and have been a cool toned??? I do know that I need a yellow based makeup for my skin. Thanks for the info. Very interesting. Of course now I’m more confused than ever :)

    2. @tiffany – It’s very confusing, I know. Being dark haired and eyed and being tan though doesn’t mean you’re warm-toned (or I’d be screwed as I’m 2/3.) If you read through the posts (especially mine) and watch Pixiwoo’s video, the whole subject may become a tiny bit clearer. The idea of a foundation’s undertone color (yellow, red, pink, grey, blue and sometimes green) comes from the idea of your undertones. Your undertone isn’t determined by the color of your skin color everyone sees (or this would be tons easier to understand) but the color underneath. The color underneath ultimately decides what colors flatter us or what doesn’t. That’s why there are extremely fair girls that have yellow undertones (which it appears very few makeup companies cater too as I’m one of them) and the classic fair girl with pink undertone.

      I like to think of warm and cool as Fire and Ice. Now, are you going to put red under Ice? Um, no. You put it under Fire as well as pink undertones. Yellow is put under Ice as well as blue and green undertones (it’s explained in the post. If I explained it here, this post would be MEGA long.) Neutral undertones have a mix. I can’t remember where grey belongs (you see this color in Asian and Black races.) Take a look through the forum posts and ask me questions there if you still have them there! I’ll try my best.

    3. Hey @katezena – thanks for the clarification! I was the one who actually wrote in the post that the yellow tones were for warm and the reds were for cools (which I now removed as to not mislead anyone). Because I always get confused! I’m warm, took a yellow and it matches beautifully. So, I think there’s a personal element to it too. Do you want to match or neutralize? I put an email into David, OCC founder – he can shed some light on how these tints are supposed to be used.

    4. Thanks Katie for the explanation. Stef I’ve always thought the same…yellow equals warm and red equals cool. I do have a lot of red undertones so maybe that makes me more cool than I would like to believe. Great info though and would love to hear more from the OCC founder.

    5. @stef, @tiffany, In a way, foundations are tricky, I think. On one hand, you have to match your own skin that everyone sees and that you see every single day. On the other hand, you have to match that undertone. Here comes the problem, what happens when your like me who’s fair with a cool yellow undertone but has a just the tiniest dash of olive that is completely unnoticeable until I get the tiniest, ittiest, bit of a tan (sometimes I want to kill that Oneida heritage of mine)? That’s a problem. Go to the foundation aisle and you look at the foundations and there’s not one labeled, “Fair with yellow undertones.” I’d be happy with that! I got a Clinique foundation a few months ago and thought I FINALLY had the shade, was going to my first kayaking class EVER, looked in the mirror……still too pink and one tiny shade too dark. Thankfully, there’s a shade lighter that’s yellow that looks perfect. Maybe this time I’ll hit jackpot (please let me hit jackpot, PLEAAAAAAAAASE. 8 years is killer. Yes, I’m whining.) It’s the perfect *foundation* (because you all know I wear tinted moisturizer 99.99999999999% because I’m just too hard to match.)

      Clinique labels everything by golden undertones, neutral and pink so that makes life a bit easier for me (and others, if you ask me.) MAC goes by my thinking as Pixiwoo goes by theirs, which makes sense to me (go to the post to read my entire thinking patterns. Again, too long.) I’m not sure what OCC goes by. I think as an artist, so red will always be warm to me and yellow is always a cool mixing medium! So, I say this (in upper case letters): PROCEED THE FOUNDATION AISLE WITH CAUTION!

    6. Ok, David has responded, the post has been updated and here’s the lowdown…

      While everything @katezena is saying is true, it just proves that there is always a debate about it, and a fair amount of confusion! I don’t think most people think of color wheels when choosing foundation.

      With OCC, it is what it is. David told me:
      “Ys (Yellow) and Rs (Reds) are meant to match their respective skintones, so those with more predominant yellow undertones in their skin would use a yellow-based shade, and those with more red undertones in their skin would use a red-based shade.”

      Can I get an amen for the simple genius of that?

      But, if you DO think in terms of neutralizing, by all means – try that! I think the beauty of makeup is that there really are no steadfast rules. Hell, order 5 shades too dark if that’s what you like. Know what I mean? And the good thing about the OCC tints is (as @mandabear mentioned) The consistency is very forgiving. Very light and airy. As you can see in my swatched above – I really could have gone Ys or Rs.

      I freaking love this line.

    7. Actually katie you are a little misinformed.
      Normally skin tones are classified PINKS and YELLOWS.

      Yellows are warm, pinks are cool.

      OCC just confuses it a bit by going red and yellow. Because red is also a warm color.

      But obviously their reds for foundation are actually for pink skin! Pink is a shade of red.. but

      Warm tones are like fire

      yellow, orange, red

      Cool tones are like the sky and water
      pink, blue, green.

      <3

    8. @Chelsea – Let’s agree to disagree, shall we? As I have said (numerous times now),I have an artist background and I was always taught that red was warm, pure yellow was neutral and blue was cool. When I started using makeup, the habit went with it along with the idea that if I wanted to make a hue COOLER in undertone, you added YELLOW. If you wanted to make a hue WARMER, you added RED.

      When people started saying, “pink is cool and yellow is warm,” my head was baffled. Positively baffled. It made ZERO sense, especially if you look at my background and how I’ve always lived. What do you mean pink, which notoriously clashes with red because they’re both warm, is COOL-TONED??? That makes ZERO sense. I finally had a sense of satisfaction and a “Woo hoo!” moment when I saw Pixiwoo’s video that explained foundations and reaffirmed what I thought (I will leave you the link below.) I trust both Sam and Nicola Chapman (the brains behind Pixiwoo) because they have over 18 years combined in the make-up industry and were tutored by a very famous make-up artist who happened to be their aunt (I can’t remember their aunt’s name at the moment.)

      So, in the end, I guess there’s no clear answer. Artists who are traditionally trained will see it the way I do and then make-up artists who are trained the way you are will see it the way you are. I wish there were just one answer.

      Understanding Skin Tone Using a Color Wheel With Pixiwoo

  7. I got to try OCC’s Tinted Moisturizer in R3, which actually worked really well with my skin tone. Everyone is right about the consistency…it’s light and goes on great, not greasy at all… I really liked it! I used it regularly and found it was a nice change from heavy foundation for the summer. My only problem was the bottle as well… it was hard for me to squeeze out at times and then I would squeeze too hard and it would come pouring out! I give it 3.5 – 4 stars, only because of the bottle, but I would use this again because it’s a really nice tinted moisturizer.

  8. I received this in the shade Y1 which is a bit light for me. I think I am most likely a Y2 or Y3…I will give it another try come winter to see if it works. I still tested it anyway though for the consistency’s sake.

    I am a huge fan of this brand and I think their products are extremely innovative where both makeup artists and just fans of makeup can both find something they love. The consistency is very forgiving, meaning I can be a shade off and probably still pull it off. The bottle is something I would change but I appreciate the simplicity of it. I will give this a 4 only because I think SPF would make it an “it” product for sure :)

  9. I’m going to join in on the love, OCC Tint is fabulous! It’s true to it’s name – it moisturizes, imagine! And honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever had a tinted moisturizer do that before. Usually, I think they should more aptly be called Foundation Light. Not this though! And I love that’s it’s oil free.

    The coverage is divine too. The build-able color is great. I use a foundation brush to apply it all over, then apply a bit more to anywhere that needs it. And I never have to fear that it will get cakey.

    But, I have to agree – I don’t like the bottle too much. For me, it comes out too fast. I don’t feel like I have enough control over it. I’m at the point now that I unscrew it and apply it that way. I do like that’s it’s a lightweight, easy to squeeze plastic. And I also like that it’s see through. But I’d much prefer a finer tip.

    4 stars, one deducted only for the bottle.

  10. I do have to say this is by far one of the best tinted moisturizers I’ve tried. I don’t mind the bottle as mine has not clogged, but I do wish it came in a bigger size. SPF is very important to me and I would love it even more if it was included. Overall, I give this 4 stars and would definitely buy again.

  11. I am a huge fan of tinted moisturizers and think they are a perfect all-in-one product – light coverage, moisturizer and sunscreen. I was bummed to see that the OCC Tint does not include spf, but one can always slap that on first.
    You guys have me all confused about my skintone, but this product sounds forgiving enough if the shade is not exact.
    Where are the OCC products sold? (I am a bit out of the loop lately)
    Great post!

  12. I got to try Y4, and I was fully prepared to hate this product. I’m picky about moisturizer, I can never find the right color for foundation, tinted moisturizer never gives coverage, whine whine whine…

    However, I dearly love my Y4! The consistency is rather thin, but I liked that because I felt it smoothed on really well. I got just enough coverage to hide my blotchy spots and hypopigmentation, but not so much that I actually LOOKED like I was wearing makeup. I wore it out shopping and didn’t feel naked at all, even though my freckles were out in full force! (Yes, I know, freckles, hypo-pigment spots, I’m a mess….)

    I give this four stars, with one star less for the bottle. It is really cute (and will get recycled to store travel items!) it does gunk up and that’s a bummer.

  13. Just to add my 2 cents to the skintone conversation–TYPICALLY, yellowish skintones are warm, and reddish skintones are cool. However, there are exceptions to this. Such as cool yellow/olive skintones. I personally am yellowish and warm (I’m half Vietnamese), and have a medium skintone. It’s rare to find foundations that clearly differentiate and label their yellow and red based foundations (like OCC and MAC), and even more rare to find foundations that are further clearly labeled yellow-warm, yellow-cool, neutral, pink-cool, etc. I’m just happy when I can find a foundation that matches! For too many years I wore pink based foundations and it just didn’t look right.

    Anyways! I wish I could get away with tinted moisturizer, but my skin needs more coverage. :( Also, is there anywhere you can test them out in a brick and mortar store? I don’t like to buy foundation without having tried it.

  14. What I really want is a tinted moisturizer with SPF at least 30.

  15. OCC, you never fail to surprise me! And I must say, I’m really pretty thrilled to see that OCC has covered a HUGE range of skin tones and colors! Finally, a tinted moisturizer that might actually work for the darker skinned folks.

    One complaint (and it’s not a new one, haha!)- No SPF? Bummer.

  16. I got to try out the shade “YO”, which is very fair and a perfect match for my pale skin tone. I was sad this didn’t contain SPF and that it was so thin–more like a runny foundation than a tinted moisturizer. When I think “moisturizer”, I think something creamy and thicker. I really needed a sponge to apply this instead of my fingers. In any case, this definitely was good for slapping on a quick layer to hit the grocery store. I had to apply a standard SPF prior to applying, but that’s not bad. I probably wouldn’t wear this if I was trying to look flawless because the coverage isn’t the best, but it is good for evening out my skin tone. I have to say I’m impressed by the range of colors like everyone else. It is RARE to find a tinted moisturizer that is pale enough for me and this was a very pleasant surprise. 4 stars (point deduction for thinness and lack of SPF)!

  17. I love tinted moisturizer! This one sounds like a winner. I must try OCC products. You guys make them sound soooo good!

  18. I love the range of colors. The swatch photos alone make me want to give this product a try! And I love that it’s moisturizing but oil-free, exactly what I’m looking for in summer months. Great review, @tiffany !

    I have yellow undertones, and the yellow-tones swatches look perfect for me.

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