Sooooo, besides feeling demotivated and falling off the blogging bandwagon a little bit…I’ve been rather adventurous too. The adventurous bug bite me when I was too fed up with having oil secretion on my face before mid of the day. That’s the downside of having oily skin 🙁 I started going through all my base products, digging them out from every corner of my room. I have this crazy idea of using primer over liquid foundation, before finishing powder for a better oil control. However not all makeup base / primer works. It must be something that is able to matte the surface after application. Here is my Top 3 pick of primer that works well as perfector :D. Let’s start from bottom.

No. #3 – Talika Skin Retouch (RM162/30ml)*

Skin Retouch is one of the best seller in Talika. It is often referred as “photoshop in a bottle” by various user and beauty bloggers but yet often misunderstood as a product that didn’t work because most user would expect their pores and wrinkles to disappear. In actual Skin Retouch is a product that gives a soft focus appearance just like photoshop effect by tricking the eye illusion with soft focus look. In another word… it blurs pores, wrinkles and fine lines but not removing or shrinking them. I use this product on the weekend as transparent foundation because it covers imperfection well and brighten my face too.

I put Skin Retouch at No. #3 because it takes a fast hand and full concentration when patting the product over liquid foundation. The texture is more thicker and yet dries down fast therefore I would need to do it fast while using moderate amount. Too much of this will ruin the whole makeup. As you can see from the “After” picture, Skin Retouch sort of vaporized my foundation away leaving me with patches all over the face. It dries down fast so there is no way I can try to smear it even. The foundation will budge if I do so. The more I pat, the patchy it gets. Skin Retouch gives me a better oil control than without. However the downside to applying this over foundation is that the oil secretion seems to be accumulating underneath so a slight touch on the face can smudge the foundation away. What I like about this product is that it managed to blurs away my large pores and fine lines. Product review – https://street-love.net/2013/01/review-immediate-younger-and-smoother-skin-with-talika-skin-retouch.html

No. #2 – Benefit The POREfessional (RM115/22ml)

I suppose this is crowd favorite makeup base / primer due to it’s unique texture. Actually I like the texture as well. What POREfessional do is that it immediately minimize the appearance of pores & fine lines for a smoother skin. It is extremely lightweight with a light scent. It doesn’t contain any oil so it’s slightly dry but yet silky and velvety. Many people use this as makeup base but do you know that POREfessional can be used over foundation too?

I have high hope on this. This product goes over liquid foundation like icing on the cake. It just glides on. With POREfessional I can apply either using swiping or patting. Usually I’m too paranoid of smearing my makeup so I would prefer patting it over. It gave me an instant matte finishing and covers up my pores nicely. I put Benefit The POREfessional at No. #2 despite me loving the finishing it gave me because this is really baddddd at oil control. Remember the purpose of this post? Yes, to find a primer that can give me better oil control. Although it does matte the surface of my face, my face doesn’t stay matte at all. Benefit The POREfessional doesn’t work on my skin as makeup base and even over the liquid foundation. However I do like the finishing the product gave me.

The Top 1 primer on my list is this.

No. #1 – Sampar Glamour Shot (RM173/30ml)

Glamour Shot is marketed as ‘transparent foundation” by Sampar. It is a serum and it’s also the 1st transparent foundation to be applied over daily moisturizer. This product is said to eliminate shine, fines lines, pores, redness and blemishes in just seconds. To date, this is my favorite weekend foundation. It doesn’t give any coverage at all because it’s transparent but it smooth out all the fine lines, large pores and redness. Simply amazing. The downside of this product is the heavy alcohol scent.

If you ask me what is the different between Glamour Shot with Talika Skin Retouch, I would say both is pretty similar. Skin Retouch is thicker and scentless while Glamour Shot is runnier like serum and comes with heavy alcohol scent. It doesn’t dries down as fast as Skin Retouch, which is good and which I like. The finishing of Glamour Shot over liquid foundation is a combination of Benefit The POREfessional and Talika Skin Retouch. It gave me a smooth, matte surface just like The POREfessional but it’s a bit patchy upon application just like Skin Retouch. However…the good side of it is that I can build coverage slowly and using fingers to correct mistake or budging foundation. This solved the patchy issue :D. Glamour Shot doesn’t dries down as fast as Skin Retouch so I can stop patting immediately when signs of patchiness is forming. What I like about this product is the flawless look after brushing on finishing powder. I list this as No. #1 primer that is just as good as apply on itself because of it’s superb oil control for me. Glamour Shot kept the oil at bay for the first five hours. That is like miracle to me. What else can I ask for beside matte coverage, covers up imperfection, patchy at first but mistake is easily corrected. If the oil secretion is floating underneath Skin Retouch, it doesn’t do the same with Glamour Shot. One thing you should know about Glamour Shot is that you cannot apply liquid foundation after that, but it do works well as perfector over foundation. Dusting powder is not a problem too. Product review – https://street-love.net/2012/09/review-sampar-glamour-shot-the-transparent-foundation-for-the-weekend.html

The above three product works for me as I was judging it based on my skin type. I get quite a number of email asking me if products that I reviewed suits normal or dry skin. Actually it depends. For example cleanser may not suits you as it is formulated for oily skin user so more oil from the skin surface will be stripped off. These three primer on the other hand will definitely work for normal or dry skin user as it’s only primer. I believe it is formulated for all skin type 🙂 I’m beginning to like the idea of thinking out of the box. Maybe I can find more discovery from my own stash eh? Have anyone of you use your primer over foundation before? Which would you recommend for oily skin? Do share!

Disclaimer: Product marked with * was previously provided for review consideration. Product without * mark is either gift or purchased on my own.