SILKY UNDERCOAT TO GIVE YOU A FLAWLESS FINISH

I’M asked about primers more often than any other product. It seems that many women don’t really know what they are and why they’d ever need one — and I can’t say I’m surprised.

From the moment make-up artist Laura Mercier launched the concept of primers to the retail market in 1996, and every beauty editor and celebrity make- up artist raved about them, few stopped to explain why women really needed to incorporate yet another product into their already overstretched beauty routines.

Well, primer is to foundation what undercoat is to wall paint. Usually silicone-based, it is there to provide the optimum surface for make-up application. You know those days when your make-up just doesn’t go on properly and you have to wash it all off and start again? Primer prevents those. Or how foundation creeps off your face in the heat? Primer helps stop that.

Or when the surface of your skin feels a bit uneven because you’ve been a bit slack with its maintenance? Primer helps smooth it. On casual weekends, I often wear it alone, with no foundation over the top.

It’s generally colourless and therefore very easy to apply. Simply smooth (don’t rub or massage) over moisturised skin, leave for a few seconds then apply foundation or tinted moisturiser for a much better finish.

Since Laura Mercier changed the game in 1996, virtually every brand sold in Superdrug to Selfridges has entered the primer business, with primers for dull skin, spotty skin, uneven, oily and dehydrated skin.

the disparity in quality (seemingly regardless of cost) is quite extraordinary. Some leave a horrible chalky finish on my face, others disintegrate into little balls when I apply my foundation, others are so thick with silicone that they just make my face feel weird.

But this doesn’t. It’s silky, fine in texture, and doesn’t leave skin so matte that it looks fed up.