You know how you see the “bestsellers” and “most popular” products in beauty stores, so you of course scoop them up, but then you realize you have no idea how to work them? Well Smashbox Photo Finish Primer Water is one of those products.
We all know the importance of priming skin before makeup. Since this primer comes in an unconventional dispenser, like a face mist, it jogged my curiosity; and being someone who always loves to experiment with different kind of products, I picked it up to give it a try.
The Smashbox Primer water is said to hydrate your skin, add radiance, create a sheer canvas to apply makeup to and wake up your skin and makeup throughout the day, all with a quick spritz. A very tall order indeed and one that I don’t think the Photo Finish primer water lives up to.
Sadly that is where the pros of the Primer water end. If I am honest, I just don’t get this primer water. To me it is nothing more than a facial mist and an expensive one at that. Yes it feels lovely to spray your skin with the primer water before you begin your makeup, but at $32 it really needs to do more than that. Beware though because the spritz on this can be quite all-encompassing, so one or two pumps and you’re done – anymore and you’ll sit around for 10 minutes waiting for it to soak it and pondering if it’s just best to towel it off and start again. Less is more. A bit of googling lead me to the discovery that a load of people online reckon this is a knock-off of MAC Fix+ and though the ingredients lists don’t read exactly identical, it’s a fair comment as they do perform similar roles.
To be clear, there is absolutely nothing about Photo Finish Primer Water that makes it any different than any average toner that you could use as part of your skincare routine, to dampen your makeup sponge (like the BeautyBlender), or to mist on your face as the last step in your makeup routine.
I’ve had this or about 8 months now and I still don’t know how this products works best.
I suggest you guys skip this one as there are better primers out there.
Available at: Sephora for $32
