We tried Dr Jart+’s cicapair color correcting treatment and it’s well worth the hype

TikTok has quickly become a hotbed for beauty trends, from heatless curls created with a dressing gown, soap brows, pixelated eye make-up and peel and reveal lip tints.

While some are nothing more than clickbait, swathes of users regularly share their favourite products, with the CeraVe hydrating cleanser or The Ordinary’s niacinamide serum proving particularly popular. 

They’re helpful too, as beauty aficionados are keen to reveal affordable dupes of expensive cult products or share exciting new finds.

One product that racked up millions of views across thousands of videos last year and continues to gain momentum, is the Dr Jart+ cicapair tiger grass colour correcting treatment (£16, Cultbeauty.co.uk). It’s a small pot packed with a mint green cream that promises to erase redness and even out skin tone.

Designed to be applied after your moisturiser, it contains a hybrid of skin-soothing ingredients that claim to leave you looking flawless, transforming from a thick cream into a subtle tint that perfectly blends into your skin tone, which can be worn alone or under make-up.

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The hashtag #cicapair boasts 31.5 million views on TikTok, and the product has been on the receiving end of rave reviews, notably for its ability to neutralise skin tone and reduce redness. So, of course we had to put it to the test to see if it lives up to the hype.

The colour correcting treatment is available in a travel-friendly 15ml for £16 or a bigger 50ml pot for £37. Is this our new favourite beauty buy or a hit-and-miss clickbait trend? Read on to find out.

The technique has long existed in make-up and as beauty has made its mark on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, it’s no longer just employed by the pros, with kits and products now available to the masses.

Traditionally, it’s used on specific areas such as blemishes or dark circles, using certain colours to neutralise or help conceal discolouration under your make-up to create a flawless base.

Green counteracts red, which is why it’s often used to conceal spots and areas of redness and in this case, blur imperfections too.

The difference between Dr Jart+’s cream and other colour correcting make-up products is it looks like a pot of moisturiser and can be applied across your face in a thin, even layer.

The formula contains a lengthy list of ingredients, including houttuynia cordata, yarrow plant extracts and panthenol to soothe skin and hydrate and raspberry leaf extract to cover up inflammation.

While the packaging looks like a typical tub of moisturiser, keep in mind that this is ultimately a make-up product and should be applied after your skincare routine.

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It’s quite a thick texture, so you only need a small amount to cover a large surface area. We dabbed a few small dots over our whole face, after moisturising, and blended in with a densely packed foundation brush. After a few seconds, the green cream became whiter, before transforming into a subtle beige tint that perfectly matched our fair skin tone.

It evened out all areas of discolouration and redness and left our skin looking clear and glowy, but as if we weren't wearing anything on our skin at all and didn't feel overly rich on the skin.

The smallest amount made a huge difference and we were instantly impressed. It won’t fully conceal large spots or fading acne scars, but it does give your skin a luminous boost that neutralises redness, particularly on the cheeks and round the nose. With one application, it left our skin looking better than it has in a long time.

Throughout the day it maintained a weightless texture, so much so that we did accidentally go to bed without taking it off because we forgot we’d applied it hours earlier. Providing coverage akin to a sheer foundation, our skin looked so much clearer and happier as a result of its neutralising qualities, so for us, it’s convinced us to put down the full coverage foundations in favour of this lightweight alternative.

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Our skin looked dewy all day, but in the right places, which is a godsend for oilier skin types that still want a radiant finish to skin. We tried it both alone and worn under make-up, and while it works both ways, we loved how subtle it was on its own. Rather than looking like you’ve just applied foundation and nothing else, it gives a your-skin-but-better finish because it adapts so well to your skin tone.

If you are prone to breakouts it won’t completely obscure angry red spots, although it does help, so you may want to apply a concealer on blemishes for extra coverage, but in much smaller amounts than you’d usually need.

You can also apply the cream onto smaller surface areas, such as a singular spot, rather than all over, and it has the same instantaneous effect. That said, we’re sceptical of how well this would work on deeper skin tones without leaving a grey, ashy cast, so we’d recommend using it as a base product with your usual foundation applied over the top to avoid this.

While redness and spots aren’t uncommon, everyday stresses have made our skin has been less than happy. For us, Dr Jart+ colour correcting treatment is the perfect quick fix, it’s lighter than a foundation while still providing a blurring effect to imperfections and doesn’t feel heavy on the skin. As a little goes so far, we also don’t think it’s worth splashing out on the larger pot, instead shop the 15ml size instead, which will last you ages.