Liquid foundation

Liquid foundation is pigment carried in a fluid — most often an emulsion of water and oils — spread over the skin to even its tone. The colour comes from a small palette: iron oxides in a run of yellows, reds, browns and black, and titanium dioxide as the white that lightens them and governs how much light the film returns.^[1] Everything else in the bottle decides how that colour behaves: how thinly it spreads, how long it stays, and whether it dries flat or with a sheen.

Of all the forms a base is sold in — powder, stick, cushion, cream — liquid is the most adjustable. It can be sheered out with a damp sponge or built up in layers, loosened with a drop of moisturiser or lifted with a drop of illuminator, and it moves with the face rather than sitting on top of it. That flexibility is the whole case for it.

Two choices decide most of what a liquid foundation will do. Finish is how the surface reads: a matte formula absorbs light and holds down shine; satin, or natural, sits between; a dewy or radiant one reflects light and reads as fresh skin — and, on skin that makes its own oil, as shine. Coverage is how much of the skin shows through: sheer and light let freckles and texture stay visible, medium evens tone, and full covers discolouration outright.

They are separate decisions. A full-coverage formula can be dewy and a sheer one matte, and coverage is built in the application as much as in the bottle: one thin layer, with a second only where it is needed, usually looks more like skin than a single heavy one. As a starting point, oilier skin tends to suit matte, long-wear formulas and drier skin satin or dewy ones — but it is a place to start testing, not a rule.

Start on moisturised skin, with primer only where it earns its place — a mattifying one on the T-zone, a smoothing one over large pores. Dot a little foundation on the centre of the face, where most people need the most coverage, and work outward, so the edges of the face get the least product and the hairline and jaw blend without a line.

The tool changes the finish. A damp blending sponge, bounced rather than dragged, presses the formula into the skin and gives the most skin-like result. A dense flat-top brush, buffed in small circles, gives more coverage and a smoother surface. A duo-fibre stippling brush dots it on for an airbrushed finish, and fingers warm the formula and suit sheer coverage. Set only what creases or shines — under the eyes, the sides of the nose — with a light layer of powder, pressed on rather than swept.

Match foundation on the jaw, not the wrist or the back of the hand, and look at it in daylight: the right shade disappears into the neck. Undertone matters as much as depth. Two shades of the same lightness can lean warm (golden, yellow), cool (pink, red) or neutral, and the wrong lean shows as a grey or orange cast rather than as a shade that is simply too light or too dark.

Many formulas deepen slightly as they dry, so judge a swatch after a few minutes rather than at once. And if no single shade is right, two can be: a lighter and a deeper shade from the same range, mixed on the back of the hand, is how makeup artists have always filled the gaps between the bottles.

The base as a single product is younger than it looks. Faces were long evened with powders and, on the stage, with greasepaint; one of the best-documented steps from stage to street came from the film studios. Max Factor's Pan-Cake, a cake applied with a damp sponge, was developed for Technicolor, first used on a feature released in 1937, and sold to the public from 1938.^[2][3]

Liquid arrived by a less obvious route. When stockings grew scarce in the Second World War, women painted their legs instead, and cosmetic stockings were worn from roughly 1940 to 1946.^[4] When real stockings returned the research outlived the product: many companies used what they had learned to develop new liquid and cream face powders, and the true beneficiary was the new make-up bases and foundations of the 1940s and 1950s.^[4][5] Most of those post-war liquids were emulsions — surfactants, suspending and spreading agents, pigments and fillers — sold under names like Liquid Beauty (1946), Revlon's Touch and Glow (1950), Richard Hudnut's Flatter-Glo (1953) and Max Factor's Hi-Fi (1955).^[5]

The largest change since has not been in the formula but in who it is made for. Eunice W. Johnson launched Fashion Fair Cosmetics in 1973 for women of darker skin tones who were often unable to find a match.^[6] An analysis of published foundation shades in 2018 still found very few brands reaching the deepest tones — Maybelline and L'Oréal among the exceptions, Maybelline having added sixteen mostly darker shades in May 2017 — and 31 of Make Up For Ever's 40 Ultra HD shades sitting in a light-to-tanned band.^[7] Shade range is now one of the first things worth checking, alongside finish and coverage.