The beauty product that changed my mind about foundation
I've not really used a proper foundation for a few years. I tend just to use a little tinted moisturiser all over, and a bit of concealer where I need it. But there is one product that has changed all of that: Dior's £48 Forever Skin Perfect multi-use foundation stick, one of the best foundations I have ever tried by far.
I was introduced to it while on a trip to the Cannes Film Festival last spring. Dior Makeup's creative director Peter Philips was enthusiastically showing me and a couple of other beauty editors his most exciting launch in years: a shiny, palm-sized black case with a foundation stick within.
Foundation sticks, in the world of make-up, used to feel a bit old-fashioned. They were the popular go-to product in films and in the theatre in the mid 20th century; back then, the sticks usually meant a thick formula that would add a mask-like layer of coverage on the skin. It may have looked great on camera, but only on camera.
But Dior has spent five years developing the Forever foundation stick. Since its launch in the UK last autumn, it has been flying off shelves, which is not always a given for a luxury make-up product. But I can see why – rather than looking cakey on the skin and feeling drying, this foundation stick goes on like butter.
It's also incredibly easy to use – just scribble on where you need it and blend – and there's no need for concealer, either. 'You can draw the stick straight on to your skin, and then blend it in with a brush or a beauty blender,' says Philips. I've been using a brush, which blends the foundation beautifully on to the skin, but I've also used my fingers and it works very well. You have a minute or two to blend the product in before it sets.
'The make-up result is a 'filter'-like finish,' says Philips, 'luminous and perfecting.'
It can of course be used all over the face, but for the most natural finish, just apply it where you feel you need to even out the complexion a little, and blend. It has enough coverage to cover my dark circles, which is always impressive in my book. I also love that it's a portable size and easy to carry around for quick touch-ups or for travelling. It hasn't left my handbag in weeks, and has become my go-to foundation for evening events.
If you're not into the trend for 'dewy' (read: shiny) liquid foundation, you'll love this. It gives the skin a semi-matt finish that looks grown-up and polished. The obsession with shine and gloss makes sense on the smooth skin of a 20-something, but as soon as you hit your mid-30s onwards, I think a semi-matt foundation offers the best finish. You won't need to use a powder over it, either, unless you have very oily skin. But as the formula is hydrating, Philips says you can apply a little less of your moisturiser underneath.
To find the right shade for you, I'd suggest going to a counter in a department store or a big Boots – foundation is notoriously tricky to match online. Dior's foundation stick cleverly takes undertones into consideration, so as well as covering shades from fair to deep, it includes different tones based upon whether your skin is more golden, pinky or neutral. This makes it match your skin perfectly – as long as you are confident of your undertone. I'm a 3N, a shade that disappears when I draw the stick on my face. Exactly as a good foundation should.
Three more ace bases
Unreal Skin Sheer Glow Tint, £35, Charlotte Tilbury
If you've ever tried Tilbury's Hollywood Flawless Filter before, this is like a solid version of it. You get a very light amount of coverage and a mega-watt glow on the skin. An excellent option for holidays when you just want a little 'something' on the face.
Skin Rewind Complexion Stick, £48, Ilia
This foundation comes in an impressively large array of shades – 42, to be exact, so you'll definitely be able to find your perfect match. It has a medium, buildable coverage, but can be sheered out to give an overall subtle, natural finish.
The Minimalist Perfecting Complexion Stick, £34, Merit
This is part concealer, part foundation stick; the finer nib makes it really easy to get into the under-eye area to conceal dark circles, but it can also be scribbled all over the cheeks and blended in with a brush to give an overall even complexion.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
7 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Here come the boys... As Dior picks British man as its top designer, just ONE of the leading fashion houses is now led by women
British designer Jonathan Anderson has been announced as the creative director of Christian Dior womenswear, finally confirming the worst kept secret in fashion and ending its longest game of musical chairs. Although if you want to have a seat at fashion's top table, you need more than a chair. Increasingly, it seems, you also need to be a man. Already head of Dior menswear since April, Anderson replaces outgoing designer Maria Grazia Chiuri as head of womenswear – leaving British designer Sarah Burton, creative director at Givenchy, as the only female heading up one of the 14 couture houses. After Virginie Viard left her position as head of Chanel last year, she was replaced by Matthieu Blazy, and only last month Dario Vitale took over Versace after Donatella stepped down. Of more concern than Anderson's gender, however, is whether he's man enough to rise to the challenge of designing 18 collections a year. As creative director, he will oversee four Dior womenswear collections per year, as well as four more for menswear. He's also charged with designing two haute couture collections a year, his first time at turning his hand to fashion's most demanding level of craftsmanship. But Anderson, 40, also helms his own label, JW Anderson, which demands six collections a year, as well as the two collections he's contracted to design for Uniqlo. Only Karl Lagerfeld has managed such a prolific output. Clearly Bernard Arnault, chairman and CEO of luxury behemoth LVMH, which owns Dior, has faith in Anderson. In Monday's statement announcing the move, Arnault described the softly spoken Northern Irishman with a prodigious work ethic as 'one of the greatest creative talents of his generation'. Indeed, not since Christian Dior himself has the house been united under one creative vision. Unusually for a fashion designer, Anderson is as good at marketing as he is at making clothes. Like Lagerfeld, he is a polymath, as interested in art, literature and film as fashion. It's this cross-cultural pollination that makes Anderson so valuable. During 11 years at Loewe, the house he helmed before Dior, revenues soared from around 200million euros (£169million) to more than 1.5billion euros (£1.27billion). Thanks to a knack for creating a buzz on social media, Anderson ensured a cultural reach that went far beyond fashion. With sales at LVMH down 5 per cent, a lot is resting on Anderson's midas touch. But he has some loyal teams to help him. It's just as well: his first Dior menswear collection is to be unveiled in just 24 days' time on June 27. His first womenswear show follows on October 1 at Paris Fashion Week. Forget cracking open the champagne: it might be time to open the Red Bull.
The Guardian
13 hours ago
- The Guardian
Jonathan Anderson: the esoteric designer taking on the mantle at Dior
Long before the designer Jonathan Anderson stepped down from his role at Loewe in March, it was rumoured he would be heading for Dior. So when it was finally announced – six months after Dior's menswear designer left, and four days after its womenswear head, Maria Grazia Chiuri, showed a collection in Rome – it surprised no one. Yet Anderson's newfound position at luxury's centre of gravity still sets Dior, a grand fashion institution, careering down an experimental path. As Delphine Arnault, the chair and CEO of Christian Dior Couture, told Vogue Business: 'For any house, having new artistic direction can be a challenge.' A critical darling and commercial success, Anderson made Loewe into a fashion week hype machine and Hollywood powerhouse while creating shoes with perspex cracked eggs for heels, art-directing Daniel Craig's post-Bond relaunch in specs and quirky knits, and casting the late Dame Maggie Smith as a model in an advertising campaign at the age of 88. Anderson's role at Loewe was also lucrative. Since he took over, the brand's annual revenues increased fivefold. With the move to Dior he will now probably become the most prolific designer in fashion; assuming he continues to work on his own brand (JW Anderson), as well as his collaboration with Uniqlo, it is expected he will show 18 collections a year. The world of high fashion is a long way from Anderson's early days in Northern Ireland. He was born in 1984 in Magherafelt, a town otherwise famous for cropping up in Seamus Heaney's early work, and went to school during the Troubles. Raised Protestant, he has spoken in the past about passing through checkpoints on his way to school. 'It does make you quite hard because emotionally you were toughened by that,' he recently told New York Magazine. Anderson's father, Willie, was captain of the Ireland rugby team, and something of a character; in 1980, he spent three months in an Argentininan prison for stealing the national flag from outside a government building while on tour. Anderson's mother, Heather, was an English teacher. As parents, they were wholly supportive of his career. 'You'll do anything for your kid if you believe their dream is not something that's beyond them,' said his father, adding that they 're-mortgaged the house to try and get him through certain points'. Anderson left home aged 18 to study acting in Washington DC, but changed his mind, returning home to work in the Dublin department store Brown Thomas. It was around this time he got into fashion, though he was turned down by every school he applied to except the London College of Fashion, which was piloting a new menswear course. He went on to launch his namesake brand JW Anderson in 2008. LVMH took a minority stake in the brand in 2013, and Anderson worked at Loewe from 2013 until spring this year. One of a new raft of power designers to share an art-college enthusiasm for avant-garde projects, he was never a designer in the pure 'cutting and draping' sense (though he completed his degree), relating more to Miuccia Prada, who studied political science before going into fashion. Anderson's arrival at Dior is part of a changing of the guard at leading houses that in recent months has seen Chanel appoint the French-Belgian designer Matthieu Blazy and Gucci sign the Georgian fashion designer Demna. Dior's announcement is the latest move in a frenzied round of musical chairs at fashion's top table, the impact of which will be seen at fashion weeks in the second half of 2025. An immediate consequence of the recent personnel changes has been a rollback of female representation in fashion's most prestigious roles. Anderson replaces Chiuri, Dior's first female designer, who modernised the ladylike codes of the house while supporting and referencing a range of female artisans and artists. She became well-liked for attempting – however clumsily with her 'We should all be feminists' T-shirts – to use her might and financial power to modernise feminism in fashion. With the exception of the appointments of two British female designers – Sarah Burton at Givenchy, and Louise Trotter, who replaces Blazy at Bottega Veneta – the incoming class of designers is overwhelmingly male. Still, as far as the male gaze is concerned, Anderson is well known for covering up the wearer's body, albeit with anthuriums and deflated balloons as well as actual clothes. He created Rihanna's bump-shaped red leather corset worn at the 2023 Super Bowl for an internet-breaking pregnancy reveal, and collaborated with the sculptor Lynda Benglis on a stage set that turned a Paris show space into a gallery. He also launched the most in-demand handbag of modern times, the Puzzle bag, and has dressed Beyoncé, Zendaya and Greta Lee. Anderson's references have always come from outside the fashion world, namely craft, surrealism and cultural history (one JW Anderson show was inspired by Rasputin gone skiing). As a result, the traditional narrative – in which young designers opt into commercial success by bending their taste toward the mainstream – has so far failed to apply in the case of Anderson, who has become more avant garde rather than less as his career has progressed. Yet however esoteric his designs, Anderson's appointment suggests the mega-conglomerate LVMH is valuing creativity over celebrity. As Arnault said: 'I think this is going to be great for the maison. There will be consistency and coherence in the products, but also in terms of communication, I think our message will be much clearer.' The idea is that Anderson will bring some of his own team and hopefully, his customers will follow suit. Whatever the hype surrounding his appointment, he is still tasked with turning around the fortunes of Dior, which saw sales decrease from €9.5bn in 2023 to €8.7bn in 2024, per an HSBC estimate. But as Arnault has said: 'It takes a few seasons to see exactly what the vision is. But I think he's totally energised by the idea.'
Daily Mail
13 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Eva Longoria's son, six, hilariously steals the show as he CRASHES red carpet to question photographers
Eva Longoria 's son knows who she is - but he doesn't understand why everyone else does. The glamorous mom was attending a Nespresso event in Cannes, France, earlier this month with her family - when her six-year-old son Santiago hilariously stole the show thanks to his adorable realization that he's not the only one who wanted her attention. In a clip shared online, Longoria, 50, was seen walking the red carpet and posing for photos as a sea of photographers called out her name. Santiago watched from the sidelines when he suddenly wandered onto the carpet and asked the snappers, 'How do you know my mom?' 'Everybody knows my mom... stop taking pictures of her,' the confused youngster continued, as Longoria laughed. Fans loved the adorable moment between Longoria and her son, and the video quickly went viral, transforming little Santiago into a sensation. 'Lmao it's cute how protective of her he got,' one user wrote. 'Bless it, what a precious moment to get on camera,' agreed another. 'Lmfaoooo he's so cute. He really said, "I'm tired of this every time we go out." The kid's had enough,' chimed in another. They continued: 'It's understandable 'cause I was annoyed when I would go shopping with my mom and she would want to look at clothes for herself if this had happened to me as a kid I would have been so pissed.' Another praised Longoria for not exposing her son to her Hollywood life. 'Actually, she gets Mom of the Year for keeping her boy unknowing about her fame. It's obvious she's trying to raise him without all the hoo-ha surrounding her celebrity,' they praised the Desperate Housewives alum. Longoria and her husband José Bastón, 56, have been married for almost a decade - first getting together in 2013, before tying the knot in May 2016 and welcoming Santiago two years later. Reflecting on falling for the media mogul, Eva told People in 2017: 'It was like the cliché angels singing, and there was a glow around him, and it was immediate chemistry. 'He was the most handsome man I'd ever seen. He was so charismatic, charming, sweet, and funny. I thought, "Who is this guy?!" 'I want to yell from the highest mountaintop about everything that goes on with us because I'm so happy and excited to be with a person as kind as Pepe is. Longoria and her husband, José Bastón, 56, welcomed Santiago in 2018 'He is probably one of the first men I've dated that has been older and established and, basically, a grown-up.' Longoria was spotted several time throughout the festival with her son, looking every inch the doting mom. Last year, she spoke about her 'cultured son,' explaining he travels with her often for work. 'You know what I love is, he's always with me when I'm working,' she said while on the Today Show. 'If we're in Spain, we just all go to Spain. If we're in Rome, we're all in Rome. And he's very cultured,' the Texas native expressed. She went on to give example of some of 'cultured' stuff her son has said, like, 'Oh mom, can we have macaroons if you go to Paris?' and, 'We can eat jamón when we're in Spain.' The actress explained, 'I just love how global he's growing up, and understands and appreciates other cultures and other languages.'
