Long-Lasting Makeup In One Spritz? Check.

I’ve mentioned the Urban Decay All-Nighter Setting Spray before. But it wasn’t until a few weeks back when I was practically melting in Malta and having to set my hotel room air-con to arctic proportions that I really understood its significance in the beauty world.

My face is a makeup eater. Apply away and then approximately four, five, six (if I’m lucky) hours later it looks like I’m barefaced. Lily always says that it looks like I’m not wearing makeup when actually I spent a fair amount of time slapping it on in the morning, my face has just gobbled it all up somewhere along the line. Being a lazy and somewhat forgetful wotsit means that I often miss priming, but a step that’s added in after you put your makeup on? Now that I tend to remember and I find it works even better than primers that work at a pre-foundation level. One night out in Malta after heat, intense sweating and someone accidentally lobbing half their drink in my face, eight hours later everything was still there without a bare patch or crease in sight. Say whut!? 

Without over egging it, there are three functions that it excels at. Firstly – a primer. This is one that I tend not to use myself as like I said I always rush into foundation but I have sprayed it on before and find that using it as the bread of a makeup sandwich with all your base products in the middle is a guaranteed way to stick everything into place (if you remember to apply it first of course). Then there’s the setting spray function. Five or six spritzes once you’ve applied your whole face – eyes and all – is like hairspray for your complexion, but without a tacky feeling or funky smell. If you don’t like powder, then this is the solution to set everything down without a hint of heaviness. Its final use is as a mixing medium which works amazingly well with pigments. Pigments were always the little vials of glitter goodness that sat unloved gathering dust due to their application being an absolute faff, but spray your flat eyeshadow brush with the U.D stuff, dip into your pigment and there you have a foiled formula that goes on wet, dries in seconds and does not budge. Seriously.

I have to put my hands up and admit that I’m a bit of a setting spray newbie and haven’t given any non-obvious offerings (a..k.a MAC Fix+) a go, so post-makeup spritzing veterans feel free to add in your two cents below…