The Etude House Correct & Care CC Cream is a multitasking 8-in1 product, which hydrates, primes, conceals, treats and protects your skin and promises anti-aging effect, stress relief, hydrating effect, a SPF 30 / PA++ sun protection, tone-up, a smooth texture and luminosity.
It actually does not promise real coverage, which was my main concern and also a bit cause for confusion about what exatly this product is. As you can see from the directions on the packing, Etude House advices you to use it as a base under your foundation (or BB Cream) for more coverage, so I expected this to have no coverage at all.
The CC Cream comes in a pump dispenser tube, which is just the most awesome, most hygienic and most handy kind of packing for any kind of cream. If you know Etute House's Precious Mineral BB Cream you are already familiar with this kind of packing, but be aware that this one is much smaller with just 35ml of cream, while the BB Cream has 60ml of product in it!
The cream itself is white with a lot of tiny bluish grains in it. When you apply the cream and start blending it with your fingers, the color starts to change into a nice skin-colored shade. This means you actually have to apply it differently than a BB Cream, because you kind of have to "rub" it in to get the color to change. Since this CC Cream only comes in one shade I was a bit worried, especially since many Asian BB Creams have a grayish or yellowish undertone, but the Etude House Correct & Care CC Cream turns into a rather pinkish shade.
The texture is different than what I expected, it is more like the one of a facial cream than the one of a foundation or BB Cream and does not blend in as easily as some BB Creams I have tried (but then I also do not think that the Etude House Precious Mineral BB Creams are the most easy to blend in BB Creams).
The product is extremely efficient and you really only need the tiniest amount to cover all of your face. The amount I used for the swatches above is way too much already.I thought that, because the coverage of CC Creams was supposed to be so minimal, you would not see much of a color difference, but I think in the end you do and my face appears to be slightly more pinkish than my neck after using this product. It also appears to be very light at first, but I have the feeling this is one of the products that gets darker over time.
As expected the coverage of this product is not very strong I am a big fan of light-coverage, or better said light textured BB Creams. I like a good coverage, but I do not like the thick mask-feeling of some products with a strong coverage and you really do not feel much of the CC Cream on your face.
This photo shows how my skin looks with the Etude House Correct & Care CC Cream only, no additional concealer or base, and you can still see many reddish areas, especially around my nose. Just showing this is a bit embarrassing to me, so I won't show a before photos and you just have to believe me that it looked even much worse before.
If you like a natural result, maybe just adding a concealer on red areas and adding a bit of powder on top might be enough already, but if you want perfect flawless skin, this CC cream alone won't be enough (unless you have naturally beautiful skin to begin with, of course!)
With the CC Cream the color of my skin appears more event, and luckily the result isn't shiny, which was one of my greatest fears as I hate the "glow" effect of many Asian products. So I deliberately did not pick the #02 Glow version, but the #01 Silky version, but even silk is kind of shiny, so I was worried that this was one of the products that would instantly turn my face into a greasy mess. Luckily it did not. Other than slightly covering spots and red areas and making my skin look a bit smoother and also "healthier" because the slightly pink undertone just is a big improvement to my usual sickly pale skin, the Etude House Correct & Care CC Cream doesn't perform any miracles. If you want to use this CC Cream as a substitute for a BB Cream, then I am still not entirely sure what the benefits of this product over a BB Cream would be. I cannot really see any as I have plenty of BB Creams that give me similar results. This is not a bad product, compared to a BB Cream, but in the end it's nothing new: Just a very light-coverage multi-functional BB Cream under a new name.
However, if you see the CC Cream as a multi-functional primer substitute, this is really good. If I add a light-coverage BB Cream over it, I get perfect coverage, and the CC Cream does not make the BB Cream any harder to blend in.
So, my conclusion: Not very good as a BB Cream substitute, very good as a primer.
I am not sure I want to try other CC Creams in the future, it's not really something I can't seem to live without.
If you have tried out other CC Creams and have written reviews somewhere, please share your links in the comments, as I am curious about other people's experiences with these new products.
