Best Glow Foundations For Every Budget

If you want your skin to look healthy, hydrated and natural-looking, glow foundations are a perfect choice. They walk the line between a radiant and matte finish and are usually pretty hydrating, which makes them an excellent fit for all skin types.

Sounds great right? Well, there’s one problem: there are so many to choose from! But luckily for you, that’s where I can help. Over the last month, I’ve tested every radiance-enhancing base I could get my hands on to bring you my top 3. Here are the ones that made the cut…

Coverage: Light but buildable
Finish: Natural matte
Texture: Liquid
Longevity: 16 hours – I touched up after 8 hours
Shades: 9
Values: Hypo-allergenic, paraben-free, non-comedogenic, dermatologically tested
Best For: Dry, dehydrated and sensitive skin

Mineralblend is the caring choice. It’s the most hydrating option in this edit, with a whopping 70% Vichy mineralising water helping to keep your skin moisturised. And it does that and then some. The foundation applies quite wet at first, but this doesn’t last forever – a win for oily skin types! The soothing feel, however, does last, which I think dry, dehydrated and sensitive skin types will love. I have eczema-prone skin, dry patches and an oily t-zone and my skin loved the texture of this, it didn’t cling anywhere and allowed all the good parts of my skin to show-through while covering up any unevenness.

If you’re trying Mineralblend hoping it’ll be similar to Dermablend’s full coverage, long-wear formula you’ll be disappointed. But if you’re trying it and hoping for a light, but buildable base that feels hydrating, looks natural and wears evenly you’ll be ecstatic – I was!

Coverage: Medium but buildable
Finish: Demi-Matte
Texture: Liquid
Longevity: 24 hours – I didn’t touch up all-day!
Shades: 50
Values: Vegan, cruelty-free
Best for: Vegans, waterproof formula, and shade selection

If you’re fickle with the coverage you like, Stay Naked will be the best glow foundation for you. It’s my favourite of the 3 in this edit for this precise reason. I want a medium coverage in the day, and full coverage in the evening, so being able to layer-up without looking cakey is essential.

The formula feels like a lot of other liquid foundations in my collection, so nothing to write home about there, but the way it dries down is something special. Urban Decay calls its finish a demi-matte, which in layman’s terms means matte with a healthy-skin (non-shiny) glow. The way Stay Naked looks on your skin will fool people into thinking you’re wearing nothing at all – heck, it’s so lightweight I even forgot I had it on!

Coverage: Full
Finish: Glowy-matte
Texture: Liquid
Longevity: 24 hours – I didn’t touch up all-day!
Shades: 11
Values: Non-comedogenic
Best for: Mature skin, full coverage.

Full coverage and natural-looking skin surely can’t go hand-in-hand? Well, they do when it comes to Parure Gold. Despite its pigment-rich formula, the recently reformulated foundation manages to give a supermodel skin finish that exudes natural beauty. I chose to wear it on an evening out, and in all honesty, I felt like a million dollars – the boujee gold bottle helps with that too.

Parure Gold is the luxury choice in this edit hands down. It stands at £58.50, but when you hear what lies inside you’ll wonder why it’s not a lot more. One of its ingredients is real 24-carat gold, which along with pearlisers help to reflect light to give you the most ethereal glow – I was inundated with ‘your base looks amazing – what are you wearing?’. That’s not it either; add in 24-hour hydration and collagen-boosting peptides and you have a foundation that’ll look amazing on everyone, especially mature skin types that want coverage that doesn’t settle into fine lines.

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