Background: Perfect appearance plays an important role in social interactions and it is well known that people make personality impressions of others based merely upon their facial appearance. Thus flawless and healthy looks are pursued to boost self-confidence in daily life. Unfortunately, skin imperfections, especially due to ageing are a sad reality that needs to be addressed in an attempt to present such a look. Indonesian women pay a lot of attention to their appearances and use high coverage powder foundations to hide skin imperfections such as hyperpigmentated spots, lines and wrinkles, scaring, blemishes etc. The best powder foundation formulation must make the skin complexion appear natural and even. “Soft focus” powder foundation is designed to hide skin imperfections without looking unnatural.

Soft Focus contains raw materials that present blurring effects. Blurring effect of raw material is affected by many factors and can be achieved by combining raw material with certain characteristics, such as flake type powder with a low refractive index, spherical powder with a low refractive index, flake type powder with a high refractive index, and sub-micron powder with a high refractive index, to acquire harmony between opacity and transmittance resulting in blurring the visibility of imperfections such as wrinkles, freckles, pores, spots, while maintaining a natural finish. The objective of this study was to determine this blurring effect of soft focus formulation on improvement of facial skin appearance.

Methods: Twenty six materials with different particle shapes and sizes were screened in this study. Initial blurring effect was studied by preparing a transparent film containing 15% raw material on a glass slide. Grading scale was created based on subjective assessment of 4 observers to determine the blurring effect with a scoring range from 1 to 7. The best raw materials were formulated in the form of a powder foundation and tested in vivo.

30 Indonesian females from various ethnic groups with facial imperfections including spots, wrinkles, acne blemishes, acne scar, pores, uneven skin tone were recruited for the study. The formulations were applied on the full face followed by photography using the VISIA imaging system. The six imperfections were graded visually by trained technicians before and after treatment followed by calculation of statistical significance of the difference.

Results: Based on the evaluation, five soft focus agents appeared to be effective in the initial in vitro fast-screening study, namely titanium dioxide encapsulated with porous spherical silica (A); porous spherical silica coated with methicone (B); talc coated with PCA dimethicone (C); titanium dioxide (and) aluminum hydroxide, coated with triethoxycaprylylsilane (D); and nylon-12 (E) which gave the highest blurring effect with a scores of 5-7. These agents were formulated in the form of powder foundation that is aimed to hide skin imperfections. The in vivo test of powder foundation formula using visual grading of photographs presented a statistically significant reduction in the imperfections of the subjects.

Discussion and Conclusion: Based on the confines and conditions of this study, five soft focus ingredient combinations, in powder formulations can improve facial skin appearance for Indonesian women. This method can be a platform for evaluating soft focus effects on complexion makeup products.