The best foundations for combination skin: achieve the ideal complexion with these perfect bases

Katrina Conaglen
By Katrina Conaglen
Published 31st Mar 2021, 10:49 BST
Updated 10th Apr 2021, 14:00 BST

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A foundation that will keep skin comfortable, cover up blemishes and imperfections, and not cause breakouts? We’ve found it.

Combination skin can make it tricky to pin down the ideal foundation. You want something hydrating enough to put paid to any dry, flaky patches, but not so rich that it will exacerbate the oily, acne prone areas. After a lengthy search, I can assure you such a thing is possible.

In the past twenty years I have tried, at a conservative estimate, 200 foundations, including (without naming and shaming) most of the high-end, expensive brands on the market. Of those, three (yes, 3) have actually impressed. They are not cheap, alas, but they are all very impressive.

The first, iT cosmetics Your Skin But Better CC Illumination (£32.50, Cult Beauty, available in 12, racially inclusive shades), is not even technically a foundation, but the sort of entirely magical elixir that, when smeared haphazardly on the skin, immediately makes you look perkier, your skin more evenly toned, and helps the light find your face in the most flattering way. It is also - huzzah - SPF50. It’s fool proof.

The second, By Terry Light-Expert Click Brush (£48, Space NK, available in 17, racially inclusive shades), I discovered in the course of a lengthy ‘appearance existential crisis.’ You may relate (or not, if you’re lucky) - those periods when you look at your face and go, “ah, ok. This is my lot, I guess.”

Pottering around SpaceNK one afternoon, an extremely charismatic sales assistant helped me match my skin tone to the By Terry range, introduced me to the Light-Expert wand, and it was such a rush. With a click of the brush applicator, a creamy textured foundation was easily swished around my face, and suddenly I was bumped out of my self-pitying malaise.

Suddenly, I had the kind of complexion usually reserved for people who consume far less red wine and chocolate than I do, and live off kale and water. I still love it. Densely textured but not cakey, it’s a great full-face coverage.

The third took me utterly by surprise. Sent a tester of Kevyn Aucoin The Etherealist Skin Illuminating Foundation