No-makeup makeup is no longer just a fleeting trend — it's one of the biggest beauty staples, and it’s not going anywhere soon. So, of course, there’s a huge demand for cosmetics that make your skin look effortlessly flawless. Unfortunately, the results aren’t always easy to achieve. Proper skin care plays an important part in pulling off the “natural” look, but it’s something many people forget about or don’t have time for. Instead, we rely on makeup to conceal flaws, and natural goes out the window in favor of caked-on foundation.
Luckily, a lot of brands combine skin care and makeup. Your morning routine can become faster and simpler if you use a single BB cream that packs sunscreen, moisturizer, and foundation, and your quixotic quest for dramatic lashes that won’t fall out can end with lash-enhancing mascara. It's a wonder all makeup isn't infused with skin-care benefits.
For now, here are the brands that are ahead of the pack — and which genius products you should be buying from each.
Colorescience
The Brand: What started as sun protection company has branched out into color cosmetics in the dozen years since its launch. But the brand has wisely kept preventive care at the core of all its formulas. Water-resistant lip glosses, air-whipped foundations, bronzers, illuminators, and color-correcting palettes are made with mineral pigments and contain SPF, so you can look good while playing it safe.
Try: Dust this luminizing powder over foundation, blush, or bronzer to add a subtle glow. Made with mineral pigments that diffuse redness (and UV rays), this illuminator is also rich in antioxidants.
Colorescience Pressed Mineral Illuminator, $50, available at Colorescience.
100% Pure
The brand: When Hollywood’s ultimate green beauty purist Shailene Woodley raves about a natural brand, we listen. This cruelty-free hair, skin, and makeup line — born out of a Napa, CA farmhouse — is void of artificial colors (fruit dyes are used as pigment instead), artificial fragrances, and synthetic chemical preservatives.
Try: This take on the ubiquitous nude palette includes three eyeshadows, a luminizer, and a blush—all colored from fruit, veggie, flower, and seed pigments.
100% Pure Fruit Pigmented Pretty Naked II Palette, $33.75, available at 100% Pure.
It Cosmetics
The brand: As a former rosacea sufferer, cofounder of It Cosmetics Jamie Kern Lima decided to create her own makeup line, which would cover and enhance her features while nourishing her skin. The brand now works with plastic surgeons to formulate products that do just that.
Try: It Cosmetics' CC cream is one of the few alphabet creams that we can actually use in lieu of moisturizer. But hydration isn't the only A-plus quality this buttery cream possesses. It also boasts buildable coverage; a beautiful dewy finish; and skin-loving ingredients like hyaluronic acid, algae, peptides, and vitamins A, C, B, and E.
It Cosmetics Your Skin But Better CC+ Cream with SPF 50+, $38, available at It Cosmetics.
Fresh
The brand: Started in Boston in 1991, Fresh launched Fresh Brown Sugar Body Polish in 1998, effectively taking sugar exfoliants into the luxury skin-care world.
Try: The Sugar Lip Treatment is the brand’s star product, which everyone and their mother (and their mother’s mother) is obsessed with. It’s so much more than a tinted lip balm, though. The ingredient list includes sugar to prevent moisture loss, oils such as avocado and jojoba to hydrate, and grape-seed polyphenols to act as antioxidants. Finally, the SPF 15 will protect your pout from the sun.
Fresh, $22.50, available at Sephora
Josie Maran
The brand: Josie Maran’s specialty is harnessing the power of argan oil, a super hydrator.
Try: Argan oil in the Infinity Lip and Cheek Creamy Oil will moisturize, while the colorful tints are easy to blend and build on. The end result is a dewy, fresh complexion. Best of all, it’s 97% natural and free of petroleum, parabens, and sulfates.
Josie Maran, $18.00, available at Josie Maran
La Roche-Posay
The brand: One of the most commonly used brands globally for sensitive skin, La Roche-Posay works hand-in-hand with over 25,000 dermatologists to continuously improve and study its products' efficacy and tackle more sensitive-skin issues. In recent years, the brand has expanded to include makeup and hair products.
Try: Effaclar BB Blur, La Roche-Posay’s BB, provides both a hint of coverage and a blurring effect, while helping to mattify the skin. It's also safe for those prone to breakouts: It helps to cover blemishes without clogging pores.
La Roche-Posay Effaclar BB Blur, $29.99, available at La Roche-Posay.
Tarte
The Brand: Back in 1999, eco-friendly makeup made with good-for-skin ingredients often lacked the kind of glamour that made you want to pull out your compact in public. Tarte Cosmetics helped change that, made with lust-worthy packaging and naturally-derived star ingredients like Amazonian clay and maracuja oil. Today, the cruelty-free brand makes some of the most beautiful makeup in the game, all while steering clear of questionable additives.
Try: This collection of shadows is not only stocked with all-occasion shimmer and matte nudes, but it also taps the brand’s Amazonian clay — which can help mattify oil-prone lids.
Tarte Tartlette In Bloom Palette, $45, available at Tarte.
Caudalíe
The brand: This cult French drugstore brand was founded on the ethos that your skin care should be natural and packed with antioxidants, most of which come from organic grapes and a variety of oils, extracts, and butters.
Try: Since the brand released its answer to BB cream, we've been hooked. It goes on smooth and hydrates while imparting light coverage. Oh, and the lip balm is out of this world, too.
Caudalíe Vinoperfect Radiance Tinted Moisturizer Broad Spectrum SPF 20, $49, available at Nordstrom.
Sisley
The brand: Sisley is known for luxurious and effective French skin care, but it also knows that many of us wear makeup every day. When it comes to color cosmetics, the brand strives to create formulas that are do more than just cover, thanks to plant-derived, more-natural ingredients.
Try: This tinted moisturizer leaves a natural-looking veil of coverage, plus is packed with a hit of moisture. How? It has vegetable glycerin and mallow extract to infuse hydration into skin and sunflower oil to keep it soft and supple all day long.
Sisley Tinted Moisturizer With Botanical Extracts, $120, available at Sisley.
VMV Hypoallergenics
The brand: For people with rosacea, dermatitis, eczema, psoriasis, acne, and sensitive or allergic skin, this brand can be a godsend. Its products are hypoallergenic (as per the name) and noncomedogenic; free of fragrance, dyes, parabens, and animal-testing; and have been tested for 76 common allergens.
Try: Skin the Bluff Concealer comes in five shades: light, medium, and dark, as well as a yellow hue for undereye circles and a green shade to reduce redness. The nifty glass jar is the perfect size for on-the-go touchups (although we recommend using a concealer brush rather than your fingers when possible to reduce bacteria buildup). It’s great for dry skin because its creamy consistency is easy to blend. And, it’s free of common allergens, fragrances, dyes, and parabens, which is great for those with sensitive or easily irritated skin.
VMV Hypoallergenics, $20.00, available at VMV Hypoallergenics
Dr. Jart+
The brand: Launched in 2004 by Korean dermatologist Sung-Jae Jung, MD, and his friend Jin-Wook Lee, an entrepreneur, Dr. Jart+ quickly became one of Asia’s top skin-care brands, and has since caught on like wildfire stateside.
Try: The famous BB creams are sure to make your morning routine more efficient. Instead of waiting for moisturizer to sink in and then putting on foundation, they combine both steps, along with other treatments that will work all day to benefit your skin. The Premium Beauty Balm has an antioxidant bio-peptide complex for anti-aging benefits, while the Black Label Detox BB Beauty Balm has arbutin for dark spots. Best of all, they all have sunscreen, so you can skip that step, too.
Dr. Jart+, $18.00, available at Sephora
Perricone MD
The brand: Another doctor who’s brought his expertise to the world of beauty, dermatologist Nicholas Perricone, MD, was one of the first pros on the no-makeup makeup craze with his line No Makeup Skincare. It offers anti-aging ingredients in all of its products, and most of them helpfully contain sunscreen as well.
Try: No Foundation Foundation is lightweight, comes in a glass bottle with a handy pump (so no germs or spills), and goes on smoothly with a velvety finish. It has SPF 30 and alpha-lipoic acid to diminish the appearance of wrinkles and pores. We also clearly have strong feelings about the No Concealer Concealer.
Perricone MD, $55.00, available at Sephora
Philosophy
The brand: Philosophy’s product names have uplifting messages. Happily, you'll feel uplifted if you use its products, which contain good-for-you ingredients like retinol, AHAs, and anti-inflammatory plant extracts.
Try: The tinted moisturizer with SPF Hope In a Jar is free of oil, fragrance, and parabens, and is instead extremely hydrating for dry skin. It won’t irritate sensitive types, and the creamy consistency blends well to create an even complexion.
Philosophy, $39.00, available at Philosophy
Peter Thomas Roth
The brand: Skin-care brand Peter Thomas Roth, which launched in 1993, recently extended its offerings to include a small-but-mighty makeup line. It includes lash-enhancing mascara and eyeliner, an anti-aging lip treatment, concealer, and CC cream.
Try: Lashes to Die for the Mascara contains nourishing ingredients to condition and moisturize lashes. It also won’t clump, flake, or smudge.
Peter Thomas Roth, $22.00, available at Ulta Beauty
Bare Escentuals
The brand: No other brand has such an impressive line of mineral, skin-care-focused makeup. None of its products include fragrance, oil, preservatives, or other harmful chemicals.
Try: This complexion starter kit is the perfect introduction to mineral makeup. It includes primer, foundation, concealer, powder, a face brush, and a mini concealer brush. The primer will help with excess dryness and oiliness, as well as fine lines and pores; and the foundation and concealer will help give you that no-makeup-makeup look while protecting skin from the sun.
Bare Escentuals, $22.00, available at Bare Escentuals
Lush
The brand: If you haven’t tried Lush’s fresh, handmade products yet, you’re missing out. It uses vegetarian ingredients, promotes packaging recycling (you even get a free face mask if you bring back five empty jars), and is against animal testing.
Try: The Feeling Younger Skin Tint is a creamy highlighter that’s unisex, and suitable for all skin types and shades. You can use it along your cheekbones, and above your brows and Cupid’s bow for highlighting, or even mix it with your daily moisturizer or foundation for an all-over glow. Formulated with ingredients such as oatmeal, cocoa butter, jojoba oil, and almond oil, it’ll hydrate and plump up your skin while evening your complexion and giving it a luminous glow.
Lush, $18.95, available at Lush
LashFood
The brand: LashFood started in luxury spas and dermatologists' offices, but is now available to consumers. Its non-irritating formula boasts lash growth in four weeks. Considering strong brows aren't likely to go anywhere soon, you may appreciate the products’ brow-growing properties, too.
Try: The Lash Transformation System is for those who want to get their lashes and brows to grow until they touch each other and end up becoming entangled. Okay, fine, that’s a terrifying exaggeration. It’s actually for those who want them to grow without the hassle of a prescription or the fear of irritation. Either way, it works, and it's awesome.
LashFood, $98.00, available at Sephora
Glossier
The brand: Glossier was getting buzz even before it launched last October. The brainchild of Emily Weiss, founder of beauty blog Into the Gloss, it’s all about the intersection of skin care and makeup. The packaging and marketing preaches creeds such as “Skin first. Makeup second. Smile always.” and “Skin is in.”
Try: Perfecting Skin Tint is a newcomer to the already crowded market, but a strong contender for your money. It contains diamond powder to blur pores and brighten the complexion, glycerin for retaining moisture, and polymer X for a very subtle facelift. It’s free of fragrance, alcohol, and parabens, and is not tested on animals. Since it’s not a heavy foundation, it won’t cover all flaws. It will, however, smooth out redness and pores while letting your skin look like skin — just with extra glow.
Glossier, $26.00, available at Glossier
Embryolisse
The brand: Created in 1950 by a French dermatologist, it has been one of beauty’s most trusted brands ever since. Its products are paraben-free, not tested on animals, and ideal for hypersensitive skin. Its moisturizers have a cult following — and for good reason.
Try: Secret de Maquilleurs BB Cream stands out thanks to its inclusion of hyaluronic acid, which works hard to plump and hydrate. It also contains vitamin E, mineral powders, and light-reflecting pigments to make skin feel silky and look bright.
Embryolisse, $39.00, available at DermStore
Laneige
The brand: You can pick up Laneige’s luxurious skin-care products at Target while shopping for your weekly throw pillows and handbags. (We mean, groceries.) The brand bases all of its formulas on the benefits of nutrient-rich mineral water. And, you guessed it, there’s a BB cream and it’s awesome.
Try: BB Cushion with SPF 50+ goes above and beyond most BB creams’ sun protection. Of course, the real star is the mineral water, which promises to cool and hydrate skin as it provides coverage.
Laneige, $34.00, available at Target
La Mer
The brand: Luxury skin-care brand La Mer was founded by aerospace physicist Dr. Max Huber, who discovered that kelp helped cure burns that he had suffered in the lab. He harvested the kelp due to its endless ability to regenerate, and with it created the brand’s secret ingredient — miracle broth — and the original product, Creme de la Mer.
Try: La Mer has since created makeup, most notably its Reparative SkinTint SPF 30. The product gives an evening touch of color to the face (like a tinted moisturizer or BB cream), while also protecting from the sun. It also, of course, has miracle broth in it, which helps to moisturize and battle both fine lines and deep wrinkles.
La Mer The Reparative SkinTint SPF 30, $95, available at La Mer.
GlamGlow
The brand: GlamGlow is another skin-care company that has slowly dipped its foot into color cosmetics, while staying true to its mission — brightening skin. This translates to products that exfoliate and hydrate to a glowing finish.
Try: The brand's new tinted moisturizer has all the things your skin wants: hyaluronic acid for moisture, vitamins and antioxidants for brightness, and illuminating particles to blur imperfections and make skin look all, well, glowy.
GlamGlow Glow Starter Mega Illuminating Moisturizer, $49, available at Sephora.
Algenist
The brand: Algenist uses its star ingredients microalgae and alguronic acid to deliver anti-aging benefits.
Try: The brand's new color-correcting drops are not only trendy, but some of the best on the market due to their ability to both conceal imperfections and improve skin over time.
Algenist Reveal Concentrated Color Correcting Drops in Apricot, $20, available at Algenist.
Like this post? There's more. Get tons of beauty tips, tutorials, and news on the Refinery29 Beauty Facebook page. Like us on Facebook — we'll see you there!
Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?
Instagram Is Freaking Out Over This $10 Marble Sponge