Our beauty editor Laura Mulley has tested no end of face bases this year but this lightweight, perfecting skin tint is the one she finds herself reaching for time and time again
As a beauty editor, I’m lucky enough to test out hundreds of products each year, so that I can suggest things that are really worth your money. And this year it seems to have been make-up bases more than anything else: foundations, skin tints and tinted moisturisers. This is probably a combination of lots of exciting new ones launching this year, combined with the fact that they’re just something I really enjoy testing; I love how having good-looking skin makes you feel.
Favourites this year include Dior Forever Hydra Nude and the new-and-improved Erborian CC Crème, but the one I reach in my stash for time and time again is Milk Makeup Hydro Grip Skin Tint, £34, and once my tube has run out I’ll definitely be purchasing another one. Here’s why…
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This skin tint blends on so well – I prefer to use a dense foundation brush, but it goes on nicely with fingers too – and makes skin look gorgeous from the first swipe: smooth, glowy and perfected, but in a very natural way. It feels lightly hydrating on the skin but not at all greasy or slippy, and gives a light-to-medium coverage that refines minor marks (a concealer might be needed to cover more stubborn imperfections though). For reference, I wear shade 4.
What impressed me most, though, is just how well this finish lasted throughout the day. I’ve always found skin tints either disappear from the skin or turn drier as the day goes on, settling in fine lines and patches, but not this one. It doesn’t remain looking exactly as fresh as when it was first applied, but it lasts better than all other I’ve tried. It also doesn’t transfer onto collars of clothes, unlike what can happen with a tinted moisturiser.
I think Hydro Grip Gel Tint would suit most skin types too, depending on what other products you use with it; it layers well over a rich face cream or SPF for drier skins, while oilier complexions can apply a little powder over the top, and it sets nicely. It also works brilliantly with Milk Makeup Hydro Grip Primer, as you’d expect.
I also love the packaging; the squeezy tube is light and travel-friendly, and I like that you can see the actual product colour through the tube’s ‘windows’.
For a slightly fuller coverage or ‘evening’ foundation, I’ll instead reach for the Dior foundation previously mentioned, £52, or my long-time favourite Charlotte Tilbury Beauty Skin Foundation, and for a barely-there base at weekends, Erborian’s does it for me. But for something ‘in the middle’, nothing has impressed me as much as this Milk Makeup skin tint this year.
