This $30 Primer Is Worth Every Penny

I am skeptical of every makeup primer I have ever tried. I am not, however, skeptical of Tina Turnbow. The New York–based makeup artist and photographer—who got her start assisting Pat McGrath and works regularly with Keri Russell—knows her makeup and skin care. So, when she handed me the HALEYS Beauty Re-fine Soft Matte Blurring Primer ($30), I put down my skepticism for once and just tried the thing.

Spoiler alert: I did not regret it. The texture is the first thing you notice. It’s silky in a way that actually means something, as opposed to the thick, grippy silicone feel that most pore-filling primers lean on. This one has a formula that, for lack of a better descriptor, just melts in. One pump, blended out with my fingers, disappeared into my skin the way a good primer should, leaving behind a soft-focus finish that made my pores look like they’d decided to take the day off.

For pale, red-prone skin, a matte primer can go one of two ways. Either it flattens everything, redness included, which sounds ideal until your skin looks like a blank wall. Or, it controls shine selectively, letting your skin read as skin. This one does the latter. The spherical powder formula blurs without caking, and the combination of vitamins C and E keeps things from looking flat or dull. The green tea seed oil takes the edge off without tipping the formula into dewy territory.

In practice, it noticeably extended the wear of my SPF-serum-skin tint trio during that streak of 90-degree temps. By the end of the day, I still looked like a person who had put on makeup that morning, which is genuinely not a given for me, especially when the humidity is at inhumane levels.

At $30, it’s an easy yes—especially if you’ve been burned by pricier options that overpromise. Trust Tina on this one. I did, and I won’t be going back.