Mattifying primer

A mattifying primer is a primer that carries powder. The base is often silicone, sometimes a water gel sold as silicone-free, and suspended in it are materials that absorb oil: silica, clays such as kaolin, starches and fine polymer powders. Worn under foundation, those powders take up the oil the skin makes through the day before it reaches the surface, and the film around them leaves a soft, flat finish that holds shine back from the start. How long it holds depends on the skin and the weather; a figure on the tube, eight hours or twelve, is the maker’s claim.

It works alongside the other ways of dealing with shine rather than replacing them. Setting powder does the same job from above, after the foundation, and blotting papers lift oil once it has come through. A smoothing primer is made for texture, though many mattify a little, and a pore-filling balm is pressed into the pores themselves. The mattifying primer is the one to reach for when the problem is not how the skin looks at eight in the morning but how it looks at three in the afternoon.

Start with how oily your skin is, and where. Skin that shines within an hour or two, all over, can take a firmer, fully matte formula. Skin that shines only on the forehead and nose by the afternoon is better served by a light gel on those places alone, since a strong mattifier on dry cheeks makes them look flat and papery. Texture tells you something too: gels and lotions are generally the gentlest, creams and mousses the most absorbent.

Then check it against your skin tone. The white powders in some mattifying primers can leave a pale or greyish cast on deep skin; press a little onto the jaw and look again after ten minutes, in daylight. And think about what goes on top. Under a dewy foundation, a mattifying primer gives a satin finish that lasts. Under a matte, long-wear one it gives the flattest finish of all, which photographs well but can look heavy in person.

Use it only where you shine. For most people that is the T-zone, the forehead, nose and chin, and the centre of the cheeks beside the nose. Take a small amount and press it in with the fingertips rather than rubbing, which pushes the powders about and leaves them patchy. Any moisturiser underneath should be light and fully sunk in, or the primer sits on a greasy layer and gives up early. Let it set for a minute before foundation.

A little powder over the same places finishes the job. During the day, blot before you re-powder: pressing a tissue or a blotting paper onto the shine lifts the oil, where more powder on top of it builds a cakey layer. If your skin is dry in some places and oily in others, put a hydrating primer on the dry places first and the mattifying one on the rest.

Most complaints about mattifying primers come down to three things. If the foundation breaks up over the nose by midday, the layer underneath is usually too thick, or sitting on moisturiser that had not sunk in: use less, and wait longer between steps. If the skin looks dry or flaky where the primer went, it has gone somewhere that was not oily, or the formula is too strong for your skin, and a lighter gel on a smaller area is the answer. If it pills, rolling into small balls as you blend, the primer and the layers around it are not getting on; give each longer to dry, or try a foundation with a base closer to the primer’s.

Heat and humidity shorten everything. On hot days wear less foundation over the primer rather than more, and carry blotting papers rather than powder. A primer can hold shine back for longer, but it cannot stop the skin making oil.

Shine has been the enemy for as long as there has been powder. In a book of recollections of country-house life between 1912 and 1939, published in 1980, the author remembers sharing “the smallest-sized tube of Pond’s Vanishing Cream” with a room-mate in Paris. It was a great advance, because powder stuck to their noses over it, and they “need not so often squint down with one eye to see if they had acquired the shine which was so much frowned-upon”.^[1] Vanishing creams dried to a semi-matt finish, and could be worn without powder to keep oiliness and shine down, which made them popular with African Americans.^[1]

Powder itself was being refined against shine. A British beauty manual of 1936 advised that “the greasy skin calls for a heavier powder with astringent qualities to dry the excessive natural oil”, and chemists came to judge a powder on two separate counts: its covering power, and its absorbency, its capacity to reduce shine.^[2] Fumed and colloidal silica, still a common ingredient in mattifying primers, appear to have entered face powders in the 1930s, and became popular in “blotting” powders made for teenagers.^[2]

A mattifying primer moves that absorbent powder under the foundation, where it can start work before the shine appears rather than after. It does not end the need for powder on top. It means less of it, later in the day.