Review: Rimmel London Fix and Perfect Primer

A quick review for you guys today since I feel so awful about not blogging in over a week! I've been looking at purchasing a new camera since my current one just isn't doing it for me and makes me not want to take pictures and hence not blog, which of course is a silly reason to not blog, but unfortunately so much of a blog post depends on good quality pictures!

Nevertheless, I have been using this primer nearly every day for a while now and feel as though I am now in a position to review it and tell you my thoughts - so here goes.

This primer comes in a shiny, white squeezy tube with dark purple writing and a matching screw on cap. One important thing to note is that this is the 001 primer - not the 002 "pro" primer, which has blue writing and isn't sold in Pricelines (or Australia at all, from what I can see). This "pro" primer seems to have many more reviews online, and also more positive ones. I haven't tried it for myself though, so I can't give any sort of comparison.

Let's have a look at what this primer tells us it's gonna do. It claims to smooth skin, and minimise pores, as well as prolong foundation wear. That's three key claims that we're going to try see if it fulfils.

The tube is a run-of-the-mill squeeze tube, with a hole large enough for a decent amount of primer to come out. A small dot goes quite a long way, and two would probably do to cover your entire face.

Yeah, I know. The primer is scary orange tinted. It freaked me out when I first saw it - I had flashbacks of BB creams labelled "light" that oxidised horribly, and my heart definitely sunk a little bit. However, once it's rubbed in, the orange tint goes away! Well, I would say at least 99% goes away. I mean, if you look closely you can see a slight difference between the second and third photos, but if you looked at the third alone, you wouldn't think that it looked weirdly orange or anything. Besides, any slight tint is easily covered by your foundation.

So let's go back to those three claims and cover them one by one.

Smooths Skin

I think this is the claim it fulfils the most. I've never had such a 'smoothing' effect with a primer before - mostly they kind of even our your skin a bit and leave it feeling nice. This primer seriously seems to make your skin feel soft, and creates a smooth base for your foundation to go over. This means that you end up with a more flawless finish whilst still looking natural. It's going to sound so silly but when I put this primer on I can't stop touching my own face since it just feels so soft.

Minimises Pores

Silicone-based primers (which this is - I'll go into a bit of detail about that later) tend to have a pore-filling effect, whereby they reduce the look of pores by essentially filling them in, leaving your skin with a smooth surface. As I said above, it definitely does smooth out my skin, and thus I've realised part of this is due to the reduction in the look of my pores - especially around my nose. However, I've never had issues with massive pores, but I've noticed that my foundation won't sink into them like it used to before I wore primer. This primer dries quickly and sinks into your skin, and if you 'tap' (as opposed to rub) it over the areas with visible pores, it will definitely help to reduce the look. It, thankfully, doesn't 'sit' on top of your skin like other 'pore-filling' silicone primers I've tried - Garnier 5 Second Blur and Maybelline's Age Rewind are definite culprits of this.

Prolongs Foundation Wear

This is, arguably, the main purpose of wearing primer - to prime your skin so your foundation can last! Whilst I will admit I don't find a huge difference in the wear of my foundation with this primer, I think its importance isn't diminished, as it provides a base for the foundation to stick to. Otherwise, it would be applied straight to your skin, which is where the issues such as pores and oiliness can surface. My nose seemed less oily when using this primer, as I feel it provided a barrier between my skin and my foundation - so, in this way, you could probably prove that foundation wear is prolonged somewhat. However, I haven't done a comparison of how my foundation lasts with and without primer, which would be needed for some more evidence one way or the other. Overall, I would say it makes a small difference in prolonging the wear of your foundation, but if you really want your foundation to last longer, investing in a decent setting powder might be a better use of your money to achieve this objective.

Something to note when using primers underneath foundation - a lot of the problems associated with primers can be avoided by ensuring that the base of your primer matches the base of your foundation. These bases are typically water, or silicone. Some might be a mix of both (and all are going to contain water obviously), but mostly you can pick one as the dominant base. You can do this by noticing the first five or so ingredients in the ingredients list, and whether any ingredients ending in -cone, -xane, or similar appear. If they do, then it's likely silicone-based. If not, water-based. Same goes for foundation.

I'll use this primer as an example. The first five ingredients are aqua/water (obviously, considering it's a liquid and all), cyclopentasiloxane, aluminium starch octenylsuccinate, propylene glycol, and phenyl trimethicone. As you continue down the list, there are plenty more -cones, silo-, and -xanes that pretty much confirm its silicone base. Comparatively, my Australis primer (in the thin white tube), has an ingredients list that reads like this: aqua, cetearyl alcohol, isononyl isononanoate, phenoxyethanol, and cetearyl isononanoate. No silicones there! Pretty evidently water-based. This would go well as a base underneath my Maybelline Dream Fresh BB Cream (water-based), and my Rimmel underneath my Revlon Colourstay. Whilst sometimes you can mix this up (I've used my Australis underneath my Revlon), this is a pretty safe formula to stick to.



Overall, I think this is a great budget primer for those looking for a silicone-based primer to smooth out their skin and reduce the appearance of their pores. I'm super pleased with this purchase as I got it 50% off as well, and this has jumped to the top of my "Underrated Product" list.

This primer goes for $13.95 at Priceline and is available for purchase online here.

Oops, another long one. So it goes - every time I say it's gonna be short, you can know for sure you'll be reading for a while.

Let me know what you think and I hope you learned something new!