Review: Skindinavia Oil Control Primer & Finishing Sprays

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Let’s chitchat about the weather for a sec, ok? The only way I can sum up my feelings about it lately is – ugh. When I moved to Kentucky I thought surely, surely the weather can’t be as miserable as what I was used to growing up in Texas. As it turns out, I was wrong. It rarely goes over 100 degrees here, but what I didn’t account for is the humidity. The temperature is ok – mostly between 80-90 degrees – but the humidity. Oh man, the humidity. For August it usually sits anywhere between 50% to 90%. It basically feels like you’re swimming everywhere, but without getting to relax on the beach in between.

Unsurprisingly, makeup seems to have a problem with this. I’ve had excellent luck in the summer with Hourglass Immaculate foundation (best oil-controlling product I’ve ever used, I think) but I’d like to have just a few more options that won’t melt off. Fortunately the Skindinavia Primer Spray and Finishing Spray landed on my doorstep just as things were getting really bad, and I put them into action ASAP.

The two sprays can be used alone or work in tandem, and I tried them both ways. After multiple combinations (with different foundations, primers, etc) I determined that the primer spray just doesn’t agree with my skin. I’ve always had issues with my skin being dehydrated, and unfortunately the denatured alcohol in it (2nd ingredient) irritated my skin quite a bit. Which I halfway expected, to be honest. Sometimes my skin is fine with alcohol, and sometimes it puts its foot down and says this is not ok. It did make my pores a little less noticeable, as claimed – not as much as a silicone primer, but the lightweight feel was an ok tradeoff for that.

The finishing spray on the other hand – I love this stuff. It also has alcohol high on the ingredients list, but it hasn’t given me problems like the primer spray did. Maybe it’s because I’m not putting it directly on my skin, I dunno. I was skeptical at first that it would do anything because once it dries (which only takes a few seconds) it feels like… nothing. No tightness, stickiness, anything. I’m still not 100% sure whether it actually keeps the surface temperature lower (because how would you even measure that?) but I’m pretty convinced about the end result. The third ingredient in the spray (after water and alcohol) is Polyvinylpyrrolidone, which is a binding/film-forming agent. It also has some aloe in there too for extra moisture. So it’s at least plausible that it does what it says on the label.

More importantly, does it work in real life? And I say yes, yes it does. I was a little concerned that I wasn’t stress-testing it hard enough because I spend a lot of time indoors and don’t wear makeup when I work out (not that I’ve been doing much of that lately). Luckily the perfect opportunity came up.

My job is mostly in front of a desk all day, but earlier this month I ended up working an outdoor event. Manual labor was involved. Normally I’d just skip makeup for that kind of thing, but I couldn’t think of a better test case for this stuff. The picture above is after about 6 hours of being outside moving around in about 80 degrees and 60% humidity. Not too shabby! For the most part my makeup stayed just the same as when I left the house. I wiped most of the foundation off my nose (yay allergy season!) and my eyebrows got a little oily, but it definitely wasn’t the meltdown that I’d normally have in that sort of situation. I also need to give a shout out to the Lorac Front of the Line Pro eyeliner for the non-smudged wing.

So overall – I was pleased with the finishing spray, and I think the primer spray could be pretty great too if your skin doesn’t reject it. I don’t necessarily feel the need for it every day, but I’ll definitely be using it for long days and special occasions.

Skindinavia Oil Control Primer ($35) and Finishing ($29) Sprays are available at skindinavia.com