Help me find a primer/ serum sort of thing to help my foundation glide on!!!

[lolalotta]

Never bought one before... any favourites???
TIA!

Clarins do one called something like Instant Smooth Perfecting Touch. It's in a little red jar and it makes your skin feel like silk.

The L'Oreal Professional Salon one is pretty good - have a look at threads in here - someone started one about it a few months' back.

The Chanel one that I tried with my new foundation (still raving about it!) was very nice but, I couldnt afford it. Im sure Ive had a Boots own before. I need one to get rid of my redness so I will be following this.

The Clarins one is wonderful.

I don't get on that well with the Clarins one - it makes my tinted moisturiser pill into little lumps (nice).
Quite similar (i.e. silicone-based - so make skin feel very smooth) but not so prone to pilling on me are Estee Lauder Idealist, and Clinique Pore Minimiser (the latter has a bit of colour so is a bit like a foundation in itself).

Laura Mercier primer is a bit different, it's not so much a skin 'refinisher' as something that is supposed to make your makeup stay put longer, although I don't notice much difference (yesterday I did a half and half test on my face and really couldn't tell which side had the primer on by the end of the day).

If you can get hold of Chanel's Le Blanc de Chanel grab it, it is the business, but it is not always available.

If you wear eye makeup, esp shadow, then eye primers are REALLY good - Urban Decay's primer potion is good but packaging is crap; Too Faced's Shadow Insurance is nearly as good and has much better packaging.

sorry, that was a bit of an essay, can you tell I've been pondering the same thing myself recently!

I have just bought the new Revlon one. 3 for 2 so I got two different types and an eyeshadow set. I dont know what it is like yet. Hope it works, its clear and I was expecting it to be green.

I haven't tried that clarins Instant Smooth Perfecting Touch but I do use their beauty flash balm which I think does a good job. Have also used smashbox and Laura Mercier primers but prefer the BFB.

corny when are me and you going to buy shares in BFB?

we should be on commision

The Loreal Professionals Primer - is £12 and is like polyfilla for wrinkles. Brilliant stuff. It is emphatically not a serum though - is a very heavy putty like substance. Works brilliantlt though. Foundation stays on all day, and makes your skin all flawless. I started a thread about it a couple of months ago here

I have Le Base by Lancome as well - that is a clear serum/gelly type consistency, but it is not half as good. And twice the price.

Avon Magix primer stuff is lush. and is £10, sometimes cheaper with offers. i heart it a lot, i did try smash box photo primer stuff and this is just as good, IMO

slight hijack - am going to hear the real Deborah Devonshire speak later this year - v excited

OOH!

I would love that! Am going to Chatsworth for the day next month to look at the Deborah exhibition (amongst other things).

Namechanged this morning because I read Home to Roost again last night. She has had a fascinating life.

Apparently she has an autobiography coming out in September as well.

oh right back atcha - would love to go to chatsworth. am big mitford fan but debo is nicest i think

Chatsworth is really wonderful. Not so much the house (as impressive as it is) - the gardens and grounds are really lovely. And a very nice welcoming atmosphere as well, the gardens were full of families playing ball games, toddlers paddling in streams, really relaxed and not at all stuffy. And the staff very friendly and laid back. So not my expectation of how a historic house would be.

I am also a huge fan of the Mitfords - but yes Debo seems the nicest (and by far the most normal).

heard lord moyne speak a couple of years ago (one of diana's sons) - he also said debo was nicest!

I think that really comes through in her letters actually, she seems to have avoided the streak of nastiness that Nancy and Decca had (or hark at me as if I knew them).

They are really fascinating. Have you read DD's letters to Patrick Leigh fermor - if not i really recommend them

yes - v good for dipping into. also have letters of 6 sisters and also decca (correspondence compendium)but not read all of that.

it is very easy to "know" them, i think!!even the most difficult of subjects has that ever present wit and "spark" that is so distinctive. some of my best comfort reads are the pursuit of love and love in a cold climate...though also love hons and rebels...and i have home to roost as well...

Yes I love to reread Love in a Cold Climate/Pursuit of Love as well.

There is a very good biography by Mary S Lovell as well - I think she is also a Debo fan.

Sorry OP for hijack!

is that life in a cold climate? i have that too...

sorry OP

MAC primer. Comes in a black tube. It's simply fabulous.

I just read Love In A Cold Climate (somehow she'd escaped my radar until recently) and - I didn't like it. Really thought I would.

Chatsworth is gorgeous and the gardens are great.

BFB is v good indeedy and Origins White tea serum thingie is v good too.

I thought everyone rated smashbox..?

Was expecting to open this thread to it being full of such replies !!!

I use the L'Oreal one. It's good. I use it mainly on my nose to make pores less like craters. It does the job.

Body shop have just brought out a new primer it feels amazing on the skin, I then use their all in one powder on and its great.