Hydrating primer

A hydrating primer is a thin, water-based gel, milk or serum worn between skincare and foundation. Most are built on humectants, such as glycerin, butylene glycol and hyaluronic acid in the form of sodium hyaluronate, which draw water into the outermost layer of the skin, with a little oil, squalane or silicone to slow its loss and smooth the surface. Some add film-forming polymers that dry to a faintly tacky layer, sold as “grip” for the foundation that follows. They sink in quickly and leave the skin looking fresh, even slightly dewy, so that foundation spreads over something supple instead of catching on a dry patch.

The nearest neighbour is the moisturiser, and many hydrating primers are sold as both. The difference is in the build. A moisturiser can be as rich as it likes; a primer has to be light enough, and low enough in oil, that foundation does not slide about on top of it. A smoothing primer does a different job with silicone, leaving a dry, velvety film, and an illuminating primer can look just as dewy, but its glow comes from pearl, not from water.

It is made for dry and dehydrated skin: skin that feels tight after washing, flakes around the nose and eyebrows, or shows foundation settling into lines by the afternoon. It is most useful under long-wear matte foundations, which can look parched on dry skin, and under powder foundations, which catch on any rough patch. Skin that spends the winter under central heating, or the summer in air conditioning, often does better with one than without.

Oily skin needs it less. A dewy primer under a dewy foundation can turn to shine by midday, and a mattifying primer there, or nothing at all, is usually the better choice. Combination skin can have both: a hydrating primer on the cheeks and around the eyes, and a mattifying one on the forehead, nose and chin. Nothing obliges one primer to cover a whole face.

Hydrating primers come in three broad textures, and the choice is mostly about how dry your skin is and how long the foundation has to last. A water gel is the lightest: clear or faintly cloudy, it disappears in seconds and suits skin that is dehydrated rather than truly dry, or a hot day. A milk or lotion carries a little more oil and cushions skin that is dry all over; it takes longer to sink in, and the foundation should wait for it. A gripping primer dries to a slightly tacky film and is sold for long wear. Foundation holds to it, which helps on a long day but makes blending slower, so work quickly and in small areas.

Whichever you choose, read the first few ingredients. Glycerin or another humectant near the top is the sign of a formula built around water; a list that begins with silicones will feel closer to a smoothing primer, whatever the name on the front.

Follow the maker on the question of moisturiser. Some hydrating primers are meant to replace it and others to go over it; either way, the fewer and thinner the layers under foundation, the better it wears. Smooth a small amount over the face with the fingertips, working outward from the centre, and wait until it has sunk in, or, with a gripping formula, until it feels tacky rather than wet.

If your skin is very dry, press a second thin layer onto the driest places instead of using more everywhere. Foundation spreads further over a hydrating primer, so start with a little less than usual; a damp sponge sheers it further still and keeps the finish fresh. If everything starts to pill as you blend, too many layers are fighting underneath. Next time leave one out, usually the richest.

Wearing something under make-up to help it go on is much older than the word primer. Shiseido’s heritage department, citing Richard Corson’s history of make-up, traces the phrase “foundation cream” to American Vogue in 1904, where it named a cream that conditioned the skin and hid its faults, covering uneven colour and pores before powder went on: what is now called in Japanese keshō shitaji, a make-up base.^[1]

The cream most women used that way was a vanishing cream, a stearate cream sold as Hazeline Snow from 1892, as Crême Elcaya in New York from 1901 and as Pond’s Vanishing Cream from 1904. Loose powder clung poorly to bare skin, and the cream gave it a dry, non-greasy surface to hold to.^[2] In 1916 Pond’s began advertising its two creams together, cold cream to cleanse at night and vanishing cream to protect the skin and hold powder by day, and its sales of the pair tripled by 1920.^[2]

Moisture was part of the sales talk from the start. Makers pointed to the glycerin in such creams, a humectant, to claim that they reduced moisture loss, and a Pond’s advertisement of 1934 promised that its vanishing cream “prevents loss of skin moisture – actually replaces lost moisture” and “holds powder and rouge smoothly for hours”.^[2] There were limits. In 1926 the chemist W. A. Poucher warned that a cream carrying too much glycerin would draw water from the air and make the powder over it spot.^[2] A hydrating primer walks the same line today: enough humectant to keep the skin supple, and not so much that the base will not settle.