I want to be careful here, because Magic Cream is genuinely a good moisturiser. It is rich, it is fragranced, it makes your skin look like it has been on a holiday it has not actually been on. The cult is earned.
What it is not, and what no part of the marketing suggests it is, is a primer. I knew this. I used it as a primer anyway. For approximately one month.
The reason I did this is the reason most makeup mistakes happen: a beauty editor I follow on Instagram mentioned in a story that she had been layering Magic Cream under her foundation for the dewy effect, and my brain — which holds a degree, runs a publication, and has tested over four hundred makeup products — read this as endorsement.
Here is what happens when you use a rich, occlusive moisturiser as a primer. Your foundation, regardless of formula, sits on top of it for the first hour and looks beautiful. By hour two, the moisturiser has not absorbed (because it is, as I said, occlusive) and your foundation begins to slide. By hour three, you have visible separation at the smile lines, the bridge of your nose, and your forehead. By hour four, you are reapplying powder in the bathroom and quietly hating yourself.
I did this five days a week for four weeks. Through three formal events, two photo calls, and one date that should have gone better. I noticed each time that the makeup was not working. I assumed each time that it was the foundation, the powder, the brush, the weather. I changed five different products before I considered that the problem was the $135 jar of moisturiser I was using underneath them.
The instructive moment came when I switched, on a whim, to Hollywood Flawless Filter — same brand, same dewy aesthetic, but actually formulated as a primer-tinted-base hybrid. My makeup adhered. It stayed. The slipping stopped. I did not have to powder once. The product cost AU$70, which is roughly half what Magic Cream costs, and it is designed for the job I was making Magic Cream do.
I have a small theory, which is that people in the beauty industry are unusually susceptible to using products in unintended ways because we like the feeling of having found a hack. The brand knew. They had already made the right product. I just liked the idea of the moisturiser doing two jobs more than I liked the idea of buying a primer.
Use Magic Cream as a moisturiser. Use Hollywood Flawless Filter as a primer. Do not, regardless of what your favourite Instagram editor implies in a 24-hour story, use the moisturiser as the primer.