What Is Makeup Primer?
What Primer Does for Makeup & How to Apply It

If you’ve ever painted a wall, particularly with a porous surface– say wood or fresh drywall– you know it’s pretty imperative that you prime the wall first. If you don’t use a primer, the paint color can look drastically different from what you expected, or the paint simply won’t adhere correctly, leaving you with an undesirable result. The reason for using a makeup primer is similar– if you think about it, your face is literally a porous surface, and creating a cohesive base before you apply your complexion product will help you get the very best results. There are a few other benefits to incorporating a makeup primer into your routine, including helping your makeup last longer, mattifying, hydrating, blurring your pores, color-correcting discoloration, and/or illuminating your skin.

If you have dry skin, the more hydrating skin products you use, the better. After moisturizing and before applying your foundation or other complexion perfector, reach for a hydrating primer like Grippy Serum™ Grip Primer. Formulated with 2% niacinamide, a top hydrating ingredient, this primer delivers up to 24 hours of hydration and gives a fresh, plumped skin look. For an extra hydration boost after you’re done with your makeup and as a touch-up throughout the day, we love to keep FaceStudio® Glass Finishing Spray on hand. The dewy mist will not only leave you with a glass-like glow, but it also has hydrating properties for your skin.

No matter your skin type, anyone could benefit from using a blurring primer like Poreless Jelly™ Blur Primer that’s also hydrating with skin-loving hyaluronic acid and niacinamide for up to 24 hour wear. Pore-minimizing polymers join forces with water jelly technology in this sheer gel formula that not only blurs and smooths, but is also good for your skin. Since you technically can’t get rid of or shrink your pores, a blurring primer like this one is about as close as you can get to poreless!

As the name implies, a mattifying primer absorbs oil and helps to mattify the skin. It’s best suited for someone with an oily skin type and who wants to combat a greasy complexion. Fit Me® Matte + Poreless Primer is formulated with clay to sop up oil for up to 16 hours and give you a beautifully blurred canvas to create your makeup look on. Bonus: it has SPF 20, too, providing an extra layer of defense from the sun.

For the girl who loves to glow, we have the perfect primer for you. Our Instant Age Rewind Perfector® 4-in-1 Glow Makeup® is the ultimate multitasker and can be used as a primer, concealer, highlighter, and BB Cream all in one easy swipe application. This do-it-all illuminating formula provides light makeup coverage for a natural glowy look.

Makeup is amazing for transforming any complexion concerns you may not want on full display, but foundation and concealer can only cover so much. Enter: a color-correcting primer. If you struggle with redness, our FaceStudio® Master Prime® Blur + Redness Control is going to be a game changer for you. It has a green tint to it that counteracts red, leaving with you an even-toned base to create your makeup look.

Makeup primer is especially great for someone with oily skin because oil makes skin slick and thus makes it incredibly hard for makeup to remain in place. Another area that’s prone to greasiness is the eyelids and if you’re going for a full-on smokey eye look or a graphic floating liner moment, you don’t want it to go anywhere! To solve that dilemma, there are eye shadow primers and products like Color Tattoo® Eye Stix Shadow that have a formula that features a built-in primer. We like to use the shade I Am Confident to create a neutral base that will also help counteract any discoloration you may have on your lids.

Just like your skin, your lashes can benefit from primer before applying mascara. Formulated with ceramide and Vitamin B5, Our Lash Sensational Sky High® Tinted Primer offers natural looking lashes when applied alone and 1.5x the volume when paired with mascara vs mascara alone. We recommend pairing our mascara primer with Lash Sensational Sky High® Washable Mascara for the ultimate amplified lash volume.

For the best application, it’s important to have your skincare in check before you even apply your primer. So, on clean skin, do your routine as you normally would, applying any eye cream, serum, moisturizer, sunscreen, etc.

To simplify the primer process, we like to think of it as either the last step in our skincare routine (after sunscreen) or the first step in our makeup routine before a complexion product. Primer is intended to be used all over your face, but if you have combination skin, you may want to implement a multi-masking approach where you target specific areas with certain primers. For example, if you have an oily t-zone, but drier cheeks, you would want to apply a mattifying primer on your forehead, nose, and chin, with a hydrating primer on your cheeks. This also goes for areas of redness– if it’s only around your nose and on your chin, you can concentrate your color-correcting primer there.

After your primer(s) is applied, it’s time to apply your foundation, concealer, skin tint, BB cream, or whatever complexion product you prefer to use. For good measure, wait approximately 1 minute to let your primer dry before going in with your base product.