It starts with deciding which formula will suit your skin the best, and there are three popular formulas: liquid/cream, powder and BB creams. The big question is, what’s the difference? Our experts give you the lowdown on liquid vs. powder foundation and more, and explain who each type is best for so you can ace your base.
Chances are, the first foundation you tried was liquid. It’s the most common formula, and it’s pretty easy to work with. You can apply it using your fingers, a beauty sponge or a foundation brush, and the options are endless. When you’re shopping for a creamy foundation, you’ll come across light, dewy foundations as well as thicker formulas that will give you full, matte coverage. In a nutshell? There’s a liquid foundation for every vibe and skin type!
As for how to apply liquid foundation, dot a little on your forehead, nose and cheeks and blend outwards until it looks like a second skin.
Pros: With a range of formulas and finishes to choose from, there’s a liquid foundation to suit all skin types and textures. It’s buildable and the easiest formula to apply.
Cons: There truly is a liquid/cream foundation for everyone, and some formulas are a better match for some skin types. For example, if you have dry skin, steer clear of matte foundations. On the flipside, if your skin’s a little oilier, a dewy liquid foundation might not stay put for as long as you’d like.
Who it’s best for: All skin types, especially those with normal, dry and mature skin.
Try it! Certified Organic Liquid Mineral Foundation
The best dewy foundation, this formula offers medium coverage with a gorgeous satin finish. It glides onto the skin like a dream, and contains ingredients that will give your skin a healthy glow. Hyaluronic acid plumps the skin and boosts elasticity to reduce the appearance of fine lines, while antioxidant-rich green tea protects the skin from free radicals. Finally, lavender and argan oil soothe and soften the skin.
For those days when you don't want to wear a full face of makeup, a BB cream is perfect. What is BB cream, and what is BB cream used for? Originally created by German dermatologists to soothe their clients’ skin after skin peels and treatments, "beauty balms" are a hybrid between skincare and makeup. They hydrate the skin and cover up blemishes, redness and other imperfections while showcasing your best features, like your freckles!
BB creams offer sheer, buildable coverage, and they usually contain anti-ageing and hydrating ingredients, like green tea. To apply, dab a pea-sized amount of product onto the back of your hand, and then use your fingers or a sponge to blend it into your skin.
Pros: With BB creams, skincare meets makeup, so they won’t clog your pores or counteract your skincare routine. Along with being quick to apply, they disguise imperfections and deliver a hit of hydration to the skin.
Cons: The formula is sheer, so BB creams aren’t suitable for days you want or need full coverage.
Who it’s best for: Anyone who wants to experiment with “no-makeup makeup” or cut down their morning makeup routine.
Try it! The Certified Organic BB Cream evens out your skin tone and blurs imperfections while letting your skin shine through. It smooths out the skin and offers light coverage with a dewy finish, leaving you with a radiant glow.
The formula contains the highest percentage of certified organic ingredients in a BB cream (80%). These include jojoba oil to boost collagen, regulate your skin’s oil production and fight wrinkles. Prickly pear oil moisturises and softens the skin, and pomegranate seed oil reinvigorates.
Love the airbrushed look? A powder foundation will help you to nail that flawless finish. These formulas are finely milled and highly pigmented, leaving your skin looking matte and velvety.
Powder foundations are long-lasting and easy to blend and layer with other formulas, like liquids and creams. They also help to absorb excess oil, so they’re a great to wear in warm weather or if your skin is on the oily side.
There are two types to choose from, and they’re both beginner-friendly. Baked foundations are pressed powders that offer light buildable coverage, and loose powder foundations offer light-medium buildable coverage. Both have a silky, matte finish texture.
You can wear full-coverage powder foundation on its own, or on top of a liquid formula. To apply, dip your Vegan Kabuki Brush into the product, and dust off any excess on your hand. Then, buff the foundation into your skin using firm, circular motions until you get the coverage you want.
Pros: Powder formulas last the distance, and they absorb oil so your makeup doesn’t crease. Plus, they’re perfect for achieving that airbrushed, flawless foundation look.
Cons: They’re not the best choice for dry or ageing skin. Since these formulas sit on top of the skin rather than melt into it, the powder can cling onto flakes and make your skin appear even drier.
Who it’s best for: This is the best foundation for oily skin, and for those who love a matte finish.
Try it! Take your pick between our two mineral powder foundations.
The Loose Mineral Foundation SPF25 is the best bet for buildable coverage. Made with 100% natural ingredients, it evens out skin tone and covers up imperfections, like acne and pigmentation without clogging the pores. It has a silky-smooth texture, and contains SPF25 from titanium and zinc oxide — pure minerals that don’t dry out the skin.
If you prefer pressed powders, the Baked Mineral Foundation offers sheer, veil-like coverage that warms up the complexion while disguising redness and blemishes. The best matte foundation, it’s infused with magnolia bark extract to boost hydration, and hectorite to tighten and minimize the appearance of pores.
The best formula for you comes down to your skin type and the kind of makeup look you’re trying to achieve.
As a base product, foundation stays on your skin the longest, so you want to make sure you’re applying a foundation that’s packed with skin-loving ingredients. Shop our range of certified organic and vegan foundations online, and check out our Makeup Trial Pack if you want to give a few formulas a test-run!
Powder foundation often flies under the radar compared to its liquid counterpart, but that’s started to change over the past couple years, with more and more influencers going viral for testing out its coverage and wear. L’Oréal Paris Infallible Powder Foundation sold out for weeks after TikTok discovered it, and just a few months ago, Maybelline’s Super Stay Powder Foundation got hundreds of beauty aficionados’ attention after a video from creator Mikayla Nogueira took off.
@mikaylanogueiraThe before and after is all you need to know this stuff is MAGIC! WOW! @Maybelline New York #MaybellinePartner
♬ original sound - Mikayla Nogueira
So what is the allure of powder foundation? In addition to most full-coverage powder foundations having an “instant transformation” effect that makes for a great social media post, makeup artist and influencer Rose Siard says, “There are a lot of benefits that powder foundation brings to the table, but the two that jump right out to me are ease of use and portability.”
Also noting that reapplying it on the go is extremely easy, makeup artist Karol Rodriguez says powder foundation can up the longevity of your coverage for multiple hours. It’s especially ideal if you’re working long hours or don’t want your makeup to move throughout the day.
“The main appeal of powder foundation is having that smooth, full-coverage foundation look with just a few swipes of a sponge,” they add. “It’s especially appealing for those struggling with skin discoloration whether through acne, hyperpigmentation, rosacea, et cetera.”
If you want to go full glam, you can even use liquid and powder foundation together to get the “most flawless finish,” according to makeup artist and esthetician Jill Sharkey. On the other hand, she adds, “On a daily basis, I just really recommend throwing on a sunscreen, a little powder foundation — pop it on and call it a day.”
Interested in learning how to add powder foundation to your routine and make it work for your skin type? Read on for a how-to and 27 makeup artist-approved foundations, skin prep products and tools to get a picture-perfect base.
Look for powder foundations with a lot of pigment to avoid heaviness; the thinner the layer is, the better. “When applied properly, they create a very thin layer on the skin and this is beneficial because the thinner the layer product, not only the less issues you will have from it throughout the day, but the better it works with other products,” Siard says.
As for picking one based on your skin type, those with dry skin definitely want to favor a powder that’s lighter, blurring and meant to smooth the skin, if you have a little bit of flakiness or texture. On the other end, Sharkey says, “Anybody that’s not dry, normal to oily: Have a ball, you can pick any powder you want because your goal is really just to mattify, so you can really use anything.”
Before you even start putting powder foundation on — or readying your skin for it, for that matter — one step that’s often overlooked is making sure your brushes and sponges are clean for the best blending. Some may use the compact sponge that comes in most powders for the convenience, but Sharkey stresses the need to change that out regularly, especially if you’re covering blemishes, so as not to spread bacteria.
Next, you want to make sure to prep your skin with skin care products, whether that be moisturizer, spray, serum or primer — or all of the above. Makeup artist and influencer Analiza Garcia says that the major, full-coverage transformation you see in viral videos can’t be achieved without this crucial stage.
“Your makeup is only going to look as good as your prep that’s underneath it,” Sharkey says. “And keep in mind, powder, it can cling to any little patch on your skin — you may not even be able to see it visibly when you’re looking at your skin without makeup, but powder will catch it. So what’s really important is to hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.”
Garcia recommends putting on a hydrating serum, noting that this step is especially beneficial for mature skin that has lost more hyaluronic acid with age.
If you have oily skin, your skin is producing extra oil to compensate for its lack of moisture, so going in with a hydrating formula is crucial to minimize the amount of oil produced, according to Sharkey. She recommends using a facial oil on your skin beforehand. “When the powder goes over it, it’s gliding like butter and absorbing a little bit on the surface of the skin,” she says. “So it’s looking more like skin and very natural looking, as opposed to going on top of dry skin, adding more drying powders.”
For dry skin or skin with dry areas, you want to moisturize and exfoliate; the aim is to get the skin, regardless of type, as balanced as possible. “For dry skin like mine, I like to go the extra mile and hydrate with serums and moisturizes and perhaps even a dewy primer before I apply powder foundation just because I know my skin gets dry very easily and if I’m using any more powder than a light dusting requires, I’m going to start feeling my skin getting tight,” says Rodriguez.
Garcia suggests avoiding swiping powder foundation onto your skin, which may pick up the problem areas that you’re trying to cover up. Instead, she says, “If you have any buildup of dead skin or if you just have a lot of texture, big pores, you’re going to want to nicely dab that powdered foundation into your skin.”
If you’re aiming for lighter, softer coverage, you should go in with a fluffy brush, according to Garcia and Sharkey. Sponges are an option as well, though Siard thinks that they lack evenness and control in the application. “[A brush] also helps with product waste because the foundation that I pick up gets applied to my face and won’t stay on the brush,” she says.
For the most coverage possible, a brush that’s dense and flat is ideal, Sharkey says, adding that a stippling method is the best bet to get the most concentration of product. “All the product sits at the top of it, it doesn’t really go in it like a fluffy brush would, so you’re getting every single ounce of product directly onto the skin,” she says.
Lastly but certainly not least, powder puffs are also a route for more precise coverage. Rodriguez uses a triangle puff to set and highlight the undereye, in particular, with powder foundation.
For loose powder foundation, Sharkey recommends placing a dime-sized amount on the puff, folding it in half and rubbing it together so the powder settles into the bottom of the puff. If you tap it against the back of your hand, the powder will come to the top and be ready to press onto the skin. The same can be done with pressed powder, though it takes a bit more effort to work into the puff.
“You know how annoying it can get having a powder, your brush, all this stuff in your purse, and then you have no room to put your wallet and everything,” she says. “So just having a teeny, little triangle puff saves so much time and room.”
Make Up For Ever
Both Sharkey and Siard recommend Make Up For Ever’s sweat-proof and water-resistant powder foundation, which became an internet favorite. Though the brand discontinued the first iteration of its popular formula, they released the updated “HD Skin” version this spring to largely favorable reviews, with many praising the foundation’s coverage.
It comes in 32 shades, ranging from fair to deep with yellow, neutral and red undertones. “They have a great shade range, and it wears wonderfully,” Siard says. “It’s also very pigmented which allows for a thin layer of product."
$43 at Make Up For Ever
$43 at Sephora
Beauty Creations
“It has great coverage as well as a great price point,” Siard says of Beauty Creations’ powder foundation. It's a fraction of the cost of most other brands, and there are 18 shades in three undertones to choose from. It has medium to full buildable coverage, controls shine, has a velvet finish and is oil-free — ideal for those working with combination or oily skin.
If you want to test it out before you commit, the brand also stands out with its offer to mix and match four powder foundation samples to color-match your skin tone at no cost, aside from shipping.
$10 at Beauty Creations
Maybelline
Garcia and Rodriguez both rave about the Maybelline SuperStay powder foundation. Rodriguez was particularly impressed with its smoothness after applying it heavily using several methods, as well as its shade range.
“I've been using the very light 110 shade to really amp up the brightness in my undereyes, especially when I'm not getting a lot of sleep,” Rodriguez says. “I use it sparingly and press it in with my powder puff while looking up and I swear my fingers just glide right off of my skin after I set it from how silky smooth it is.
$13 at Target
$15 $11 at Amazon
$15 at Ulta
Tarte
Sharkey recommends Tarte’s powder, which she says is great for sensitive and acneic skin types. “This powder is so smoothing,” she says. “Even though it’s loose … I have gotten complete, full coverage of my acne.”
She also notes that it’s talc-free, which isn’t likely to affect your skin but may still be beneficial. “The only people who will probably be affected by [talc] is people who have very sensitive skin, maybe even irritated, acne-prone skin as well," she adds. "Talc-free products are just more gentle on the skin."
$39 at QVC
$40 at Tarte
Amazon
This mineral powder has buildable coverage and a blurring effect. Plus, the clean formula is made without fillers, preservatives, fragrances, oils or synthetic dyes, and is safe for acne-prone skin.
$39 at Amazon
Sephora
This transformative cream-to-powder formula allows you to seamlessly blend the balm in, and once it sets, it gives a shine-free powder finish. In addition to a translucent version that anyone can set their look with, it comes in 10 tinted shades for light, naturally enhanced coverage.
$36 at Sephora
Ulta
Designed to work with all skin types, this matte-finish powder foundation is oil-free and minimizes shine. "This product offers good coverage, absorbs oil, controls shine and allows for touch-ups during the day without icky build-up," one reviewer writes on Ulta's website. "Good for really oily skin."
$37 at Ulta