We tried a color-changing concealer that treats acne

• We try the August+Monroe 3-in-1 Blemish Camouflage which claims to adapt to your skin and heal acne.
• It contains pigment-bursting beads that transform to best match your skin tone for a seamless blend.
• It works well as an acne treatment but doesn't easily match a variety of skin tones.

Following is a transcript of the video.

Nico Reyes: Wearing masks has definitely made me break out more than usual, but the other day I got an Instagram ad for this. This is the August+Monroe 3-in-1 Blemish Camouflage, and it's basically like a concealer that's supposed to prime, conceal, and heal skin blemishes. It has these pigment-bursting beads that will supposedly match the pigment of your skin, so you know I'm calling in a couple friends to see if that's actually true.

So here is what my skin is looking like today, I definitely have some redness and some breakouts that could use some coverage, so I'm going to be focusing the product there. I kind of want to test this out on my hand first, just to see what we're working with.

I'm just wiping the back of my hand with a makeup wipe just to show you that there is pigment bursting happening. Whether or not this pigment will match my skin tone I am not so sure, but it's there. There's definitely some color.

I don't have any face makeup on right now, just my eye makeup and some lip gloss, but I'm going to apply some moisturizer because it says that that's going to help the product blend more seamlessly.

So, now it's time to actually start applying. Let's start over here. I feel like my most visible acne is on this side, so I'm just going to take a little bit, like, dot it on the areas where I need the most help, and then blend in a circular motion. This isn't, like, full-coverage, Tarte Shape Tape kind of concealing. I think it's just meant to tone down the discoloration, the redness, whatever you're trying to cover up.

That actually doesn't look that bad. Why did it look so pink on the back of my hand, but on my face, it doesn't look too terrible? The texture of this does feel slightly grainy almost, and I think that's because of those "pigment-bursting beads." I do think that it's helping. OK.

[laughs]

I have to be specific because although it's not giving me as much coverage as I think I would have liked, I wasn't expecting this to be super full coverage, but I just think I expected a little bit more. It's not terrible. And it's honestly blending into my skin color way better than I was expecting it to.

I feel like the concealer aspect of this is way better at covering darkness than it is redness. Like, I just feel like the redness is peeking through in the mirror, whereas the darkness actually is getting better. I wonder how this is gonna work out for A. C. and Jensen.

A. C. Fowler: So, I'm going to show you all my pimple. I got one just for this, literally. And then I have some other dark spots. There's a dark spot right here.

The only way it's going to blend into my face is if it's lotion.

[laughs]

That's how I feel about it. I don't see how this is going to capture the richness of my skin tone.

OK, is anything happening?

I added just a touch more just to see if it was really working, but I think that it changes color a little bit, but as you can see it's still, like, ashy, like, you can see it sort of bunched up in my sideburn. Beard line is still pretty white around there. And so I just don't think it, it's not changing to my color, the color of my skin. So I don't really think I can call it coverage. It just looks like ash.

The good news is they say they are testing out new ranges, so hopefully that comes down the line. But for right now, this is all I got.

Jensen Rubinstein: I typically get hormonal acne, and now, especially with the mask and maskne, I've just been getting it even more on the chin and cheeks. So I'm really excited to see if this actually works and can cover my acne.

Ooh, it feels like, a little bit grainy. I'm feeling a little something. It's not just like, you know, normal-feeling foundation. Is it going to blend into my hand? Hard to say.

I already put on my moisturizer, so I'm just going to try to spot-treat it with my finger. It just looks like it's making my skin look a little bit more patchy right now. I don't think that it all looks like one cohesive color and it's completely, you know, adapting to what my skin looks like. It does kind of still show up as different colors. You can still see that it's not, it's not full coverage. It is just doing a little bit.

I don't think that it is completely adapting to my skin color, so I wouldn't just wear it by itself. But as an under-makeup treatment for my acne, I would probably try it out.

Nico: I've been wearing the blemish camouflage over the last few days just to see how it works as an actual acne treatment, and the results have been minimal, but pretty good.

I was worried that I was going to start breaking out, because in my mind, this is more like a makeup product rather than an acne treatment, but I've definitely noticed some pimples shrinking when I use this as, like, an overnight mask. And it even helped fade some of my dark spots a little bit.

And because this gives me a layer between my skin and my mask, I feel like I've noticed the maskne hasn't been as bad lately either. I don't know if that's just a coincidence, but it's been better.

I think where this falls short is its shade-matching ability. I think if you're trying to find the right shade for you, especially if you're a lot fairer than me or have deeper skin, this has a learning curve that isn't the easiest to figure out.