How to Prep Your Skin Before Applying Make-up

Your first step in make-up application should be excellent skin prep. Before reaching for eyeshadow, mascara and lipstick, you need to know how to make the perfect base for make-up. No matter what your make-up look of the day—glam, au naturel or classic—a good skincare routine is always a necessity, but most of us need a little help in the morning to feel our very best. These steps include skin-care essentials like L’Oréal Paris Pure-Sugar Coffee Scrub for Rough Skin and L’Oréal Revitalift CicaCream are simple but integral, especially if you want the results of your make-up routine to be flawless.

Make sure to cleanse, moisturize, prime and illuminate before you even think about applying make-up in any form.

Should you always prep your skin before applying makeup? YES!

• It will help your make-up look and perform its best.
• It will help your make-up last longer.
• It will help enforce your skin barrier.

Here’s how to ace your skin prep before applying make-up.

Cleansing is the first step in any skincare routine, so you’d better believe it’s important. Making sure you have a clear and debris-free canvas to work with will make all your make-up steps that much easier. Opting for a gentle scrub and mask over harsh cleansers is great when you’re thinking about applying make-up—it’s a quick and easy way to clean without stripping the skin of moisture. Thanks to a scrub’s unique formula, it lifts dirt and dead skin cells without damaging the skin while a clay mask will soak up any excess dirt and oil that’s sitting on the surface.

Try: L’Oréal Paris Pure-Sugar Coffee Scrub for Rough Skin for a cleansed, toned and clear complexion that is fresh and ready for the next step in your skincare routine. Follow up with L’Oréal Paris Pure-Clay Yuzu Lemon Mask for Skin with Imperfections for an additional deep cleaning step to get smooth, perfectly prepped skin.

• Purifies the skin
• Exfoliates for a smooth, radiant canvas
• Moisturizes and hydrates skin
• Removes dirt and lifts grime

Prep your skin with moisturizer

Dry skin is definitely not a good look when you’re applying make-up— smooth and hydrated skin is always going to look best no matter what make-up look you’re into. Getting rid of dry spots and flakes is a problem solved with the right moisturizer. You’ll want to pick a moisturizer that offers not only hydration but also calming effects. Look for ingredients like tiger grass (also known as centella asiatica), which is hydrating and anti-aging. Calming the skin—as well as moisturizing it—is important so that if you apply make-up next, it won’t irritate your skin further.

Try: L’Oréal Revitalift CicaCream, a soothing and incredibly nourishing moisturizer that calms and protects your skin’s important barrier.

• Repairs the skin barrier
• Hydrates your complexion
• Combats wrinkles

To prep your skin you need, of course, face primer

You can’t know how to make the perfect base for make-up without including face primer. It’s a product that helps to mattify the skin, makes foundation last longer and helps to manage oil and sebum. None of your make-up steps can start until you’ve prepped your skin with face primer, which is why finding the right one is so important. Look for one that smooths and blurs and you’ll have the perfect base for applying make-up. Those with oily skin should look for a mattifying primer that will help absorb excess oil and eliminate shine—which will allow you to have complete control over how matte or glowing you want your complexion to be. Looking to up the ante on glow? Look for a face primer that’s illuminating.

Try L’Oréal Paris Infallible Matte-Lock Primer to perfect your skin before applying make-up with colour, like foundation.

• Minimizes pores
• Blurs imperfections
• Mattifies the skin

Skin prep has glowing results

How to get glowing skin? It takes more than just strategically placed highlighter. Make sure you also apply a highlighting or iridescent lotion; it will give a subtle glow to your whole face—that lit-from-within, youthful glow that we’re all coveting. No matter if you apply make-up on top—foundation, blush, bronzer—your skin will still be dewy, which is a look that is always going to be popular: Glowing, hydrated skin is youthful skin.

Try: L’Oréal Paris True Match Lumi Glotion. Thanks to a subtle tint and lots of illumination, you’ll be glowing in the best possible way.

• Hydrates skin
• Adds luminosity
• Offers a tinted glow