Finding Your Perfect Makeup Primer

The Formulas

Water-Based Primers: Lightweight and refreshing, water-based primers create a lightweight barrier that locks hydration in and keeps dryness out while ensuring your makeup doesn’t move throughout the day. Sitting invisibly on your skin, they smooth out the surface, helping your foundation glide on seamlessly, avoiding cakiness or patchiness. If you’re all about keeping the skin hydrated, then try out Maybelline Poreless Jelly Primer. With Water Jelly technology, it leaves skin feeling fresh, moisturised, and non-greasy.

Serum-Based Primers: Similar to most serum-based products, these primers glide onto your skin like a serum before drying so that you can apply the product evenly. Designed to bond closely with your skin and foundation, the tacky texture reduces the chance of patchiness throughout the day. If you need a primer that will ensure your makeup lasts all day and all night, then Maybelline Grippy Serum Primer is a perfect choice. Lasting up to 24 hours, the ultra-blendable serum formula is super easy to blend with no tugging or pilling.

Oil-Based Primers: Oil-based primers work differently from the others by nourishing and conditioning your skin while prepping it for makeup. Made with lightweight oils, they form a silky layer that smooths over rough or dry patches, ensuring even application. Absorbing quickly, these primers leave behind a subtle glow rather than a greasy residue.

The Finishes

Matte: If you’re all about a shine-free look, a matte primer is your go-to essential. These primers work to control excess shine, leaving your skin with a smooth, velvety finish. Perfect for oily or combination skin, they keep everything in place and ensure your makeup doesn’t slide off throughout the day. If this sounds like your style, then Maybelline Poreless Jelly Primer is a perfect choice. Delivering an instant skin-like and non-greasy blur, it layers well under makeup, leaves no white cast, and doesn’t pill.

Natural: For those who want their makeup to look like skin but better, a natural finish primer strikes the perfect balance, evening out your complexion while keeping the finish neither too matte nor too glowy. Great for everyday wear, it creates a fresh, effortless finish. For this look, you can opt for Maybelline Baby Skin Instant Pore Eraser Primer. Smoothing over imperfections and blurring pores, it helps keep your makeup locked down.

Dewy: Want that lit-from-within glow? Dewy primers are here to deliver. They’re all about enhancing your skin’s natural radiance, giving you a soft, luminous look. Ideal for dry or dull skin, they work beautifully under lightweight foundations or even worn solo.

The Skincare Benefits

Many primers are also infused with skin-loving ingredients that don’t just help keep your makeup in place all day, but actually deliver targeted skincare benefits that leave your complexion looking healthy and radiant long after you’ve taken your makeup off. Here are some of the most common benefits:

• Hydration: Packed with ingredients like hyaluronic acid or glycerine, hydrating primers plump up your skin and lock in moisture. Perfect to help stop your foundation from clinging to dry patches, these primers, such as the Maybelline Poreless Jelly Primer and Maybelline Grippy Serum Primer, give you a smooth and seamless finish.
  
  

• Skin perfecting: Want that Instagram filter effect? Working overtime not only to keep your makeup in place, but also to reduce the appearance of blemishes and leave your skin looking brighter and smoother, many primers are formulated with ingredients such as niacinamide, aloe vera, and ceramides. Maybelline Grippy Serum Primer brings all these skin-loving benefits with 2% niacinamide and a non-comedogenic formula that brightens, plumps, and hydrates, all while being gentle on all skin types, including sensitive.
  
  

• Blurring: These primers are designed to create a smooth surface that visually reduces the appearance of pores, fine lines, and textured skin. If a more even complexion is your top priority, then Maybelline Poreless Jelly Primer is a must-have. Formulated with pore-blurring polymers and 2% niacinamide, this water-based primer smooths and hydrates the skin and gives a soft-focus, blurring effect.