Maybelline Baby Skin Face Primer

We all want our skin to be as smooth as glass and our makeup to last all day, but for most of us this is far from the reality we face every single day. While there are tons of primers out there that will smooth your skin, fill in your pores, and keep your makeup looking great all day, most of them are in the $20-30 price range. I'm much more comfortable with something in the under $10 price range that is easily available. Maybelline is one of those drugstore brands everybody (at least here in the States) has heard of, so let's take a look at their Baby Skin Instant Pore Eraser and see how it holds up.

This is a silicone based product, which means a few different things. First, it won't get absorbed into your skin throughout the day, which means the makeup you put on top of it won't be absorbed into your skin. That helps with the lasting power of your makeup, and is probably a huge reason most of us use primer to begin with. With this being silicone based though, it means water based foundations won't really work with it and can break apart throughout the day. It just takes some experimenting to see which primer and foundation combo is the best for you. I haven't had a major issue with my foundation breaking apart, so I can't say how badly this particular primer reacts with a water based foundation.

If you have what I would call "regular" sized pores then this will do an excellent job filling them in and making your skin look smooth as possible. The pores on my forehead and nose are about average sized and I'm really happy with how well this performs. The pores on my cheeks however are larger and I feel like this doesn't really "erase" them like it does on my nose. For a drugstore brand this does just fine, but if you have large pores everywhere or are really concerned about how they look you probably won't be happy with this primer.

I really like the price point (about $7 on average), how it smooths out the majority of my skin, and how nicely my foundation smooths on over it. My biggest critique of it is it does make my skin oily. I would assume that's because it is silicone based and therefore doesn't absorb in, but I always look and feel extra oily after I use it. During winter when my skin is drier than usual this won't be a problem, but during the summer months I typically skipped using this so I wasn't an oil slick by the end of the day. I haven't decided if I would repurchase this, I both like it and don't like it. I'd like to try a few more brands before I commit to using this all the time. If you use a face primer, which one do you use?