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Witch Anti-blemish Skin Clearing Primer

Anti-blemish witchcraft from Witch.

http://www.boots.com/en/Witch-Anti-Blemish-Skin-Clearing-Primer-With-Witch-Hazel-Extract-30ml_1160734/

I’m in two minds about primer. On the one hand I can see the sense in preparing your skin for make-up. After all, an artist or even a painter and decorator would prepare their work surface ready for painting. On the other hand, I’m quite lazy and this seems like an extra step that denies me snozzing time in the morning.

I’ve tried primer (Smashbox) before, and have been impressed by its ability to ‘airbrush’ my face. I wasn’t so impressed that it seemed to react against my sensitive skin. 

Nonetheless, I was keen to try the Witch primer.  It promises to mattify the skin “absorbing excess oils, providing a smooth, silky base that helps you achieve an even and long lasting finish. My face is dry and flaky yet terribly shiny. I’ve also been suffering spots of late, so on reading the description I was hooked.

So was I impressed? Well yes and no. It didn’t deliver the airbrush magic of the Smashbox primer, but then it is around a quarter of the price at around £6.99. But it gave me a great base and my foundation lasted a lot longer. 

It’s also supposed to protect you skin from getting further blemishes, and it certainly did that. The way it works is by forming a ‘barrier’ to stop your pores being blocked by make-up gunk (nice) and I say it performs really well. It even seemed to reduce existing spots much quicker than with my foundation alone.

It didn’t react with my skin but I found I had to leave it to ‘settle’ on the skin for a minute or two first; otherwise I ended up with strange splodges of foundation/ primer gloop around my nose.

The downsides? Well, it didn’t mattify as much as I’d have liked. Maybe I’m just born to shine.

The other thing was that it had a bit of an odd smell. Witch Hazel I imagine, but it bugged me for hours until I figured out what it was. I made my boyfriend smell my face to see if he could detect it (weird I know) and I can confirm that no one else will get a whiff of it. 

I’d probably buy this again, but being quite fickle it would only be until I found a more mattifying formulation, or if I had a massive spot outbreak. 

Did you buy this product and what did you think?