Can BENEFIT’s New POREfessional Matte Primer Make It Through a Warehouse Rave? Let’s Find Out!

I am, begrudgingly, a glow-getting girly. That is to say, it’s hard to keep my skin from becoming an oil slick within an hour of piling on the loose powder. In the summer, I’m covered in an unwanted glaze within minutes of sitting in my car with all four of the AC vents angled towards my mug. For whatever reason, glowy, glass skin just doesn’t translate well on me. My theory is that glass skin looks best on good skin, which is hard when your skin type is oily, acne-prone, and sensitive. I’m sure the heavy foundation I wear isn’t doing me any favors, either. 

 When I was presented with a chance to test out BENEFIT’s brand-new launch, The POREfessional Matte Primer (which is a matte version of the brand’s cult-fave POREfessional primer), I thought “why not?” I've already run the gamut of different mattifying methods, such as baking with translucent setting and finishing powders, endless oil-blotting sheets (which—yikes!), and buying only matte-finish foundations. Sure, these weren’t totally useless tactics, but they also came with caveats (cakiness, patchiness, emphasized pores, or being powerless in the presence of my sebum, just to name a few). I still got shiny within an hour or two.

My First Impressions of The POREfessional Matte Primer

Upon first squeeze, the primer had a gel-cream consistency and wasn’t as thick as I’d expected. When I swatched it over the back of my hand, the mattifying and blurring powers of this stuff were pretty much instantaneous. I liked that it was thinner than most silicone-based primers and felt almost like skincare.

Test 1. Pick Sides 

My testing method was going to be a split-face comparison where I tested how my skin looked bare, then unprimed with foundation, and finally using The POREfessional Matte Primer under foundation. 

Just like every non-filtered face IRL, my skin is far from airbrush perfect. I’ve got it all—acne, enlarged pores, loads of discoloration, congestion, uneven texture. 

Um…sir? Am I in a bakery because what in the cake face is this? Maybe it’s my foundation or how I applied it, but how does my skin look way worse than with no makeup at all? Big yikes to the emphasized…well, everything.

I tested the other side of my face with The POREfessional Matte Primer under foundation.

The difference is night and day. Sure, you can still see the pores, but I wasn’t concentrating on that area by my nose (much to my disappointment now). It makes my makeup look so much smoother and seems to enhance the coverage and tone of my foundation, too? Whatever it did, I’m into it.

Test 2. Full-Face Review

For my full face, I used about the same amount as I swatched on my hand in the photos and waited until it felt nice and set (about a minute or two). Then I used a slightly moistened beauty sponge to apply my foundation with the rest of my makeup. Just like it did on my hand, this thing blurred and smoothed out the huge pores and uneven texture of my skin that foundation alone couldn’t hide.

I wanted to show what it looked like before I powdered my face, and honestly, it’s glowy without being shiny. Despite my terrible selfie skills, it’s clear that the skin is still skinning. But would it after hours of dancing?

I decided to test this at a warehouse rave not because I wanted the primer to fail its many claims (which include helping to blur the look of pores, extend the longevity of your makeup, and instantly absorb excessive face grease), but because I needed all the help I could get in preventing my makeup from looking like a Rorschach test meets a mudslide.

After

The Final Verdict on BENEFIT's New POREfessional Matte Primer

Guess who wants a full size? It me. 

This primer kept my skin shine-free for four hours—twice as long as it normally takes! That may not seem like much, but it is for the amount of oil my face produces. Not only that, this thing blurs and smooths out my very porous and acne-prone skin, and held on for dear life to my makeup through hours of dancing. 

For complete transparency, I still used a bit of loose finishing powder at the end of my makeup routine, but I always top off my face with powder. The test for me was how much of a difference it made wearing it with my normal makeup routine, compared to without it. Hands down, my makeup with The POREfessional Matte Primer won by a landslide.

For my fellow oily girlies, I’d say give it a go! 

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