Hydrating serum for makeup

The Best Hydrating Serum for Makeup, No Pilling

When you spend time on your skincare routine before applying your makeup, it’s super frustrating to see your foundation ball up and pill. You wanted a smooth look and you get a pilling look instead. But if you use a hydrating serum that preps your skin like a primer, and get the application down pat, you can get rid of the pilling and keep your makeup looking smooth. 

Let’s discuss the best hydrating serums for under makeup, and how to make sure your makeup doesn’t pill.

Quick Picks: Top Hydrating Serums to Wear Under Makeup

Why You’ll Love These 4 Serums for Under Makeup

You’ve been using a moisturizer that’s supposed to be so good for your skin, but it’s so bad for your makeup. Time to switch to a hydrating serum that helps your skin hold makeup beautifully. 

Best Pick for All Skin Types: Hydrinity Serum

The Hydrinity Restorative HA Serum is formulated specifically to absorb fast and layer easily. Hyaluronic acid is a friendly moisturizing ingredient for all skin types, and it’s a powerhouse of hydration, pulling water into all your facial layers so it naturally smooths your fine creases. Because it’s formulated with dimethicone, which matches makeup ingredients, it won’t clash with your foundations or primers. Instead, the shared chemistry helps your makeup blend cleanly with a great grip.

Best Pick for All Skin Types: 

For oily skin, you want to be careful with moisturizers so you don’t end up clogging your pores. The PCA Skin Hyaluronic Acid hydrator includes niacinamide, which helps reduce oil in your skin. It also has ceramides, which helps boost a depleted skin barrier and keep skin from turning dry. It’s carefully formulated for long-term hydration, so using it daily means you’ll see your skin improve with time.

Best Pick for a Dewy, Glowy Look

When you’re prepping for makeup and hoping for a dewy look, Image Skincare’s Vital C Hydrating Serum is your friend. It helps you start boosting your skin radiance from the moisturizing step, so that you can apply lighter foundation or just tinted moisturizer and get your skin to look naturally glowing. This serum is also a powerful hydrator, so your makeup blends in easily to your moisturized skin.

Best Pick for 2-in-1 Prep

The Obagi Daily Hydro Drops is a facial serum that includes tiny oil droplets that melt into your skin when you apply it. This makes it super friendly for layering under base makeup, because it creates a smooth, hydrated canvas that easily allows for makeup application. You may still want to use foundation, but a lot of the work will already be done.

Why Your Serum Pills Under Makeup (And How to Stop It)

Although picking the right hydrator is a big part of making sure your makeup layers nicely onto your moisturizer, it’s also important to understand the other factors that will affect how your makeup sits.

The first thing that matters is ingredients. Silicone-based foundations can sometimes ball up into little particles and pill when they’re layered over heavy water-based or oil-based serums. That’s why choosing a light hydrator serum, or using one that contains silicone, will be one of your steps to preventing pilling. Look out for high percentages of hyaluronic acid or niacinamide, as both of these can end up balling under friction.

The second factor is time. Even a light serum that gets easily absorbed needs 60-90 seconds to fully sink into your skin. And heavier formulas will need a full 3-5 minutes to complete their work. So before applying makeup, it’s important to allow your skincare its time, and only then move onto makeup application.

One more aspect to focus on is how you apply foundation. If you rub in your foundation too vigorously, it will physically push the foundation together with the serum and cause it to pill into little balls. Instead, apply the foundation with a damp sponge and a gentle, stippling motion.

Paying extra attention to these factors that cause pilling can help you prevent it from happening in the future.

Shop for Serum Under Makeup

Once you’re more aware of ingredients and application methods, take a look again at your favorite moisturizer serum. Is it working well under your makeup or is it too heavy? If waiting for the serum to absorb still doesn’t stop the pilling, it may be time to try a lighter hydrating serum. See our complete collection of serums to find the perfect one for you.