About six months ago, my make-up challenged sister asked me if she really needed a primer under her make-up. My response was, “If you are going to be in bright lights, or a warm room or hot day, and if you want your make-up to stay where you put it with minimal need for touch-up, then yes, absolutely.” Make-up lines for models were the first to develop and use primers, because the models didn’t want to have to keep re-doing their foundation and blush under the hot lights of a photo shoot. But now, almost every major line has a primer. The prices and quality vary, as do the ingredients. We, the consumers, need to do some research to choose the right primer for our faces and our foundations.
Smashbox PhotoFinish Foundation Primer was one of the first to become available to the public. The founders of Smashbox have been in the make-up for models business for years, and decided to bring the best of their products to the public; these are professional quality products that are affordable for most people. The original PhotoFinish Primer is clear, and goes on clear. It was designed to be a primer for the face, just as artists use a prime for a canvas. It is intended to prepare your skin for the application of foundation and other make-up items, as well as to help fill in small lines and wrinkles, and make the skin appear to have a matte finish. It is a great primer for every woman, no matter what her skin type or color is. It comes in a bottle with a pump dispenser, which helps make sure you can use every bit of what’s in that bottle. Smashbox PhotoFinish primer feels silky on your skin, and contains vitamins and anti-oxidants to help heal your skin and slow the aging process.
When I first tried Smashbox PhotoFinish primer, I thought it felt oily going on. After just a few seconds, though, my skin felt silky and smooth, and not at all oily. Although PhotoFinish is clear, it seemed to even out my skin tone. I’m not as young as I used to be, although thanks to good genes I’m not as wrinkled as many women my age, but PhotoFinish did diminish the appearance of fine lines, and that crepe-y look under the eye. I felt that my skin looked a good ten years younger.
After you apply PhotoFinish, you are instructed to wait for about three minutes before applying the rest of your make-up. Because the original PhotoFinish is not used on the eyelids, I usually fill in that time with applying eyeshadow, liner to the upper lid, and mascara. I use PhotoFinish on my lower lid, so the liner there goes on last. Then I’m ready to use foundation. If you’ve read some of my other articles, you will know that I’m basically a Bare Escentuals girl; I use bareMinerals powdered mineral SPF 15 foundation in Fair. Smashbox PhotoFinish Foundation Primer does help keep it in place, even though it does a fairly good job of that by itself. The best thing about using PhotoFinish Primer with powdered mineral foundations is that the powder will not settle into fine lines, but will float on the surface of the primer, giving your skin a flawless finish.
Smashbox uses botanicals and vitamins in most of their products, to help improve what you may be covering up. The ingredients of Smashbox PhotoFinish Primer are: Cyclomethicone, Dimethicone Crosspolymer, Isopropylparaben, Retinyl Palmitate, Tocopheryl Acetate, Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), Carthamus Tinctorium (Safflower) Seed Oil, Vitis Vinifera (Grape) Seed Extract, Cola Acuminata Seed Extract, Propylene Glycol, Camellia Oliefera Leaf Extract, Isobutylparaben, Butylparaben, and Water.
The original Smashbox PhotoFinish Foundation Primer is an excellent product, but the folks at Smashbox have come up with a few additional Primers over the last couple of years. Smashbox PhotoFinish Foundation Primer SPF 15 with Dermaxyl Complex is the perfect primer for those of us over 35. Or maybe even over 30. It contains Smashbox’s patented and secret Dermaxyl Complex which has been proven in clinical trials to minimize the look of lines and wrinkles, and the SPF 15 sunscreen helps to protect your skin. The Smashbox websites says, “This advanced formulation allows you to treat, protect, and instantly smooth the skin – priming it for the day.” Although it looks rather pink or coral in the bottle, it goes on clear. I started with the original Smashbox PhotoFinish Primer, which retails for $36 for a 0.93 ounce bottle. I now use the PhotoFinish SPF 15 with Dermaxyl Complex, which retails for $42 for a 0.98 ounce bottle. It is slightly more expensive, but for the added protection of the sunscreen alone, I feel it is worth the extra cost.
But Smashbox didn’t stop with the SPF 15 and Dermaxyl Complex Primer. They also added a line of three PhotoFinish Color Correcting Foundation Primers. The Color Adjust primer is green; it is formulated to minimize skin redness, whether it comes from exposure to weather, from rosacea, or from acne. The Color Blend primer is apricot; it helps to hide under eye circles, veins, and sunspots – known as age spots to people who don’t have any yet! It also helps cover freckles. Finally, the Color Balance is lavender, and is formulated for naturally yellow skin tones, to help them look less sallow. I should add that although these come out of the bottle looking like their color, as you blend them on your skin the color disappears and your own skin tones even out. Because I sometimes have rosacea outbreaks, I use the Color Adjust PhotoFinish Foundation Primer (green). It doesn’t make me look like a Martian, but it definitely evens out the red. The Color Correcting line retails for $38 for a 1 ounce bottle.
Another increasingly well-known line, Laura Geller, has a foundation primer called Spackle. When my non-make-up-challenged sister introduced it to me, I have to say I was a little bit put off by the name. If my face is so badly wrinkled that I need Spackle, maybe I should just wear a paper bag instead! But at her insistence, I tried it, and was pleasantly surprised.
The Laura Geller Spackle Primer that I have now, and in my photos, is a small jar that came with a set of Laura Geller cosmetics, if you buy it separately, it comes in a pump bottle. Laura Geller (who is a real person and make-up artist) likes to use botanicals wherever possible, and the primer is no exception to that. It contains Water, Glyceryl Polymethacrylate, Dimethicone, Propylene Glycol, Cyclomethicone, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Dimethiconol, PEG/PPG-18/18 Dimethicone, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Extract, Gingko Biloba Extract, Anthemis Nobilis Flower Extract, Hamamelis Virginiana (witch hazel) Extract, and Calendula Officianalis Flower Extract, Malva Sylevestris (Mallow) Extract, Centaurea Cyanus Flower Extract, Lecithin, Bisabolal, Triethanolamine, Carbomer, Disodium EDTA, Phenoxyethanol, Methylparaben, Propylparaben, Titanium Dioxide, and Mica.
Like the Smashbox PhotoFinish, Laura Geller Spackle is great for all skin types; it goes on smoothly and invisibly, giving skin a silky and smooth feel. It is lightweight, as is the PhotoFinish, and is oil-free. It appears white, is slightly thicker than the Smashbox PhotoFinish, and a 2 ounce bottle retails for $21.50. Those 2 ounces last a very long time. The Laura Geller line also has a Lip and Eye Spackle Duo, which retails for $21.50, which seem waxy to me, and although it has concealers and brighteners to use over your foundation, it doesn’t offer a sunscreen or any color correcting shades to go under your foundation.
I made you read those long lists of contents for a reason. If you’re a savvy consumer, you’ll know that a list of ingredients begins with what there is the most of, and ends with what there is the least of. You may have noticed that the Laura Geller Spackle Primer ingredients begin with water; Smashbox PhotoFinish Foundation Primer’s ingredients end with water. Although Smashbox mentions the vitamins in its compound, you should notice that they, too, contain a lot of botanicals. I don’t know what all those ingredients are, but I am reasonably sure that some of the ingredients in both products have been made from crude oil or plastics. Unless you are willing to pay a lot more money, you will find such ingredients, along with waxes and talcs, in almost every make-up line.
Laura Geller’s Spackle is a less expensive product, at 2 ounces for $21.50, than the Smashbox PhotoFinish (original) Foundation Primer, at less than 1 ounce for $36, or in the case of the PhotoFinish with SPF 15 and Dermaxyl Complex, just under 1 ounce for $42, almost twice the price of the Laura Geller product. In my opinion, the Spackle can be less expensive because of the amount of water it contains. Both products go on smoothly and invisibly, both products help reduce the appearance of lines and wrinkles, and both help ensure that your make-up stays where you put it, for almost 24 hours. Both Smashbox and Laura Geller are “better” lines of cosmetics; you won’t find them at a drugstore, although you will find them in better (i.e., more expensive) department stores and at Sephora stores, or at www.sephora.com on the internet. Both contain botanical ingredients along with some petro-chemical ingredients. The Smashbox line offers an original PhotoFinish Foundation Primer, along with the PhotoFinish with SPF 15 and Dermaxyl Complex that treats, protects, and smooths the skin, and the Color Correcting PhotoFinish Primers for consumers with skin tone challenges. Laura Geller has nothing like that, or not yet, anyway. Laura Geller suggests that you can use Spackle without adding foundation or additional make-up over the top of it, for an even-skinned look on a casual day. Smashbox advises the use of foundation and more make-up; its PhotoFinish was created to be a primer for foundation, not to replace foundation.
My personal choice, when I’m feeling wealthy, anyway, is the Smashbox PhotoFinish Primer with SPF 15 and Dermaxyl, or at least the original PhotoFinish Foundation Primer. To me, it feels lighter and silkier, my skin just feels better with it on, and it does a better job of both improving the look of lines and scars, and in the case of the Dermaxyl complex, it even seems to reduce the actual lines themselves. It is definitely more expensive than Laura Geller Spackle Foundation Primer, but for my money, it’s worth the price.
