Do I Need Primer For Makeup

Makeup primers that hope to smooth your skin, seal in your moisturizer and cement foundation to your face have proliferated in the past decade, but among consumers and makeup artists akin, they've always been met with a certain degree of suspicion. What does this expensive tube of something that's not quite moisturizer actually do? And practise we actually need it?

Every bit their name suggests, primers "prime" or optimize the skin surface earlier foundation is applied. Think of them as double-sided tape for your makeup, or even spackle. For peel with large pores, a primer tin shine the surface and prevent foundation from creating dots across the T-zone. For skin that's either oily or besides dry, the right primer can offering an added scrap of mattification or moisturization (only rarely both at the same time).

So primers tin can improve the look of foundation. But far too often, they're billed equally a complexion panacea. Based on feedback from makeup artists, about primers haven't earned that billing.

"For a long time, I thought that I had to use primers," said Tim MacKay, a makeup artist based in New York City. "I retrieve that I stopped when I realized that if yous prep the pare a lilliputian bit better with the right moisturizers and any the skin needs ... you don't really demand a primer."

How the primer craze started

The delinquent success of Smashbox Cosmetics' Photo Finish Foundation Primer, which debuted more a decade ago, showed other brands there's a market place for primer.

Lauren Goodsitt, global beauty annotator at Mintel, a cosmetics industry market research firm, sees a link between the growth in primer sales and the habit of posting photos, often close-upwards photos, online.

"As consumers' presence on social media grew, then did the popularity of foundation primers. Social media created an expectation that peel appear flawless, poreless and smoothen both in photos and in real life," she told HuffPost.

Co-ordinate to Goodsitt, 43% of U.S. women ages 25-34 ― those most probable to be heavy social media users ― employ primer compared to only 23% of U.Southward. women ages 45-54.

For amend or worse, many women now view primers equally an essential office of making themselves up, often on the seemingly reasonable assumption that primers volition aid makeup last longer. The reality, equally makeup artists notation, is a little chip more complicated.

When primers are worth it

"If you have really dry or oily pare, it'south smashing to utilize primers to assist combat this," New York makeup artist Ashley Rebecca told HuffPost.

For those with truly oily skin ― skin that glistens with sebum from ear to ear (not merely in the T-zone) nearly constantly ― a primer can absorb excess oil from beneath foundation and prevent the foundation from separating as quickly.

For those with drier complexions, a primer tin can create a bulwark to prevent pare from "drinking" the h2o contained in most foundations ― again, with the goal existence that the foundation volition non split and become "cakey." In this sense, a primer is similar to a moisturizer. But it's thinner and floats on the skin, whereas moisturizer sinks in.

Primers besides tend to have an optical chemical element. Whether blurring or illuminating, they arrange the fashion that lite hits the skin.

And as Rebecca said, "If your peel tends to be uneven in tone or crimson, primers tin help calm that down." This last benefit is one that makes primers a particularly bonny choice for men.

Sephora carries 190 varieties of face primer.

Although gender expectations are shifting effectually wearing makeup, most men still prefer to wear as niggling every bit possible. That's why Smashbox's trend-setting colored primers, which debuted in the 2000s, caught the eye of makeup artists similar Michelle Spieler, who relied on primers for making up male talent at ESPN.

"Smashbox changed primers in that they target[ed] certain primers for certain skin types," Spieler told HuffPost by email. "[I]f men had blood-red/ruby-red pare, we used the greenish primer. If a guy was super dry out, we used the blue primer. If someone was too sallow, the peach," she added.

In fact, Spieler noted that she uses primer increasingly on men ― and less on women, for whom products like CC (color correcting) creams eliminate the need.

That said, primers remain valuable to those who want to approximate perfect pare with as niggling foundation equally possible.

What to watch out for

If a foundation primer claims to brand your makeup last longer, you should be suspicious, according to makeup artists. Note that some primers actually do the opposite: A primer that is mostly silicone, for instance, volition cause a foundation that is mostly water to slide off the skin.

Overall, the interaction between a primer and a foundation is difficult to predict, as it depends so much on the cleansers, serums and moisturizers applied to your skin before the primer even comes out of the bottle. Theory rarely translates seamlessly into do here, but as a general rule, for long wear, minimize the corporeality of production between your skin and your foundation.

MacKay's experience is that primer doesn't really deliver on the long-wearing promise. He said the value of primers comes from their ability to help conceal large pores and other texture on the skin and to address oiliness ― a view shared by Dr. Angela Lamb, director of the Westside Mount Sinai Dermatology Faculty Practice.

"I am neutral about primers or rather, it depends on what is in them or what purpose they are trying to serve," Lamb said. "Some primers are for mattifying, which tin be expert for people with larger pores or who feel their peel looks oily afterwards some fourth dimension."

But don't expect primers to exist a final solution to oiliness, according to MacKay. "Everyone, at the end of the day, has to be a lady and pulverization their olfactory organ," he said.

What about other options?

Should you decide to skip primer entirely but savor the feeling of something betwixt your skin and your makeup, some moisturizers are known to work well under makeup. Cult favorite Embryolisse Lait-Crème Concentré creates a smoothen and dewy canvas, as does Weleda'south Peel Food. Both are quite thick, however, and contain ingredients like mineral oil and lanolin, respectively, that tin clog pores.