Stick foundation

Stick foundation is cream foundation made firm enough to hold its shape: pigment carried in oils and emollients and set with waxes, then moulded into a stick that twists up like a lipstick. Drawn across the skin, the warmth of the face softens it enough to blend. It gives medium to full coverage for most formulas, though a few are made sheer, and the finish runs from satin to natural matte to a hydrated glow.

Its closest neighbours are easy to confuse. A stick concealer is smaller, drier and more heavily pigmented, made for spots and shadows rather than the whole face. A cream foundation in a jar is the same idea with less wax, softer and slower to apply. A skin-tint stick or blush stick carries far less pigment. The stick’s own case is convenience and control: no bottle to spill, no brush needed in a hurry, and coverage placed exactly where it is wanted.

Choose by texture first. A creamy, emollient stick glides and blends easily and suits normal to dry skin; a firmer, matte or cream-to-powder stick grips better on oily skin and moves less through the day. Pressed with a fingertip, a good stick should give slightly and leave a smooth swatch without drag.

Then decide on coverage. Most sticks are built for medium to full cover, which is what the format does best, but a few are sheer tints meant to be swiped on and patted in. A stick used for full coverage all over can feel heavy; many people use one only on the centre of the face, around the nose and on the chin, and leave the rest bare or sheer.

A stick is also the easiest foundation to use in more than one way, and several are now sold as multi-use. A shade that matches can go under the eyes and over marks as a concealer; a shade or two deeper can be drawn under the cheekbones as a contour. Match the main shade on the jaw in daylight, as with any foundation, and check that the range includes your depth and undertone before settling on a formula: a stick cannot be thinned with a drop of moisturiser the way a liquid can, so a shade that is slightly off is harder to rescue.

Start on moisturised skin: a stick drags on dry patches and settles into flakes. Draw a few short stripes where coverage is needed — across the forehead, down the nose, on each cheek and the chin — or dab the stick only on the places that need cover. Less is more; it is easier to add a stripe than to take one away.

Then blend at once, before the edges set. A dense flat-top or kabuki brush, buffed in small circles, gives the smoothest, fullest finish. A damp sponge, pressed and bounced, sheers it out and leaves the most skin-like result. Fingers work for sheer sticks and touch-ups. Blend outward toward the hairline and down onto the neck so no line shows at the jaw, and set only the areas that crease or shine with a light press of powder. On warm days, or with a matte stick that sets quickly, work one area at a time — forehead, then cheeks, then chin — blending each before drawing the next stripe.

For touch-ups later in the day, blot first, then dab and press rather than drawing the stick over powder, which it lifts. Keep the stick capped and out of heat, which softens it, and wipe the top with a tissue now and then: it touches the skin directly, and a clean surface keeps it that way.

The stick has a long theatrical history. The opera singer Ludwig Leichner established a commercial make-up business in Berlin in 1873 and, in the historian James Bennett’s words, was the one who “first commercialised the idea” of greasepaint, sold as sticks: thicker sticks for the base or foundation, thinner ones, called liners, for shadows and lines, in colours numbered from No. 1 as the lightest.^[1] Off the stage, Lydia O’Leary’s Covermark range of 1936 already included a Spot-Stik for single blemishes, produced and packaged like a lipstick.^[2]

One well-documented route to the everyday stick ran through the film studios. In 1946 Max Factor adapted its Pan-Cake make-up for black-and-white television, and the following year introduced Pan-Stik, “a creamy, greaseless make-up in stick form”, in professional versions made to suit black-and-white and colour film stocks and, later, television.^[3] It was released as a general make-up in 1948, in five “color harmony” and two “sun tan” shades, and advertised with the line “No puff, no sponge, can’t spill or leak in your purse”; it was turned up like a lipstick, dabbed on the forehead, nose, cheeks and chin, and blended with the fingertips.^[3] In Japan, according to Shiseido’s own account, the company launched Zotos Face Stick in 1950, an oil-based cream powder that it describes as the arrival of a portable stick type.^[4]

The instructions have barely changed since: turn it up, dab it where it is needed, blend it out. What has changed is the range of finishes, from full theatrical cover to a sheer glow in the same shape.