Hello friends!
Back when I first started getting into makeup, I was adamant on buying basically everything I could to try. This primer ended up being one of the samples I had received in a purchase! I’d never heard of the brand, but it seemed fancy so I was excited. Now I’m finally hear to share my thoughts on it!
Brand Claims: The Smooth Affair Primer claims to: “prepare the skin so makeup goes on more easily and lasts longer”, “helps the skin hold on to more of its own moisture”, “smooths, brightens and nourishes skin”, and “minimize the appearance of pores and visibly reduce the appearance of wrinkles”.
Packaging: The packaging is very basic, but looks quite pretty. It’s a muted orange with a pearl finish and basic white writing for the information. While I have a sample size of it, the full size looks identical.
I did have some issues with the product coming out before I even squeezed the tube, which lead to a lot of waste unfortunately. While this isn’t uncommon with a lot of skincare that I’ve had in a tube, I’ve never really had this issue with primer – I’m assuming it’s just due to the thin consistency. Looking at brand claims, it does seem like this primer has some skincare benefits as well, which could be why it acted more like a skincare item than a primer in my experience.
Application: When first squeezing it out of the tube, it has a somewhat thin consistency and is a white base. It feels very smooth and siliconey when I rubbed it into the back of my hand.
When I first applied it, it felt slightly sticky and wet, but it dried down quickly and left my skin feeling very smooth and soft. It doesn’t leave any sort of color behind after being rubbed in, and I actually pressed it in to try and really get it over my pores. I don’t think that doing that made any difference to just rubbing it in normally with my fingers.
Initial Application: I have very prominent pores on my chin, nose, and cheeks, and pressing this into those areas did seem to keep my foundation from emphasizing the pores in those areas. However, I did notice when applying this without anything on top that while it softened the look of my pores on the sides of my nostrils, my forehead and top of my nose didn’t look any better, and in fact my forehead seemed to be even worse.
I personally didn’t notice any sort of brightening effects during makeup application at any point, but especially not after my foundation was on top. There’s a chance you could get more brightening effects by using more primer, but it’s just a waste of product at that point.
Wear: Unfortunately this primer does absolutely nothing for the longevity of my foundation, and it rubbed right off with even the slightest pressure from my finger. This is a big problem, because the areas where my pores are biggest is also where I get oily (t-zone), so not having any sort of stick for the foundation means that even if it doesn’t emphasize my pores, it will still come right off.
Overall: My experience with this primer hasn’t been great – I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do with it. Even if it helps the foundation look blurred on my nose, the fact that there’s no oil control or stick for the foundation means that it will come right off and I have no coverage whatsoever; back to square one. When I tried using this on its own as a blurred look for my skin, it ended up looking worse than if I had just left it alone in the first place. I’ll be using this up, but once it’s gone it won’t be coming back into my collection.
Knowing the brand and looking at the claims, I think it’s clear that I’m simply not the target audience at this point in my life – so take this review with a grain of salt!
Price: If you’re interested in trying this for yourself, it’ll be $50 – that’s quite the pricey primer! You can find it on various websites, including the Jane Iredale website and Amazon.
Karissa Talks Beauty 