Ready Set Glow: Worth the Hype? OleHenriksen Banana Bright Face Primer Review

Makeup is my creative outlet, and my face is my canvas. So it only makes sense that I’m also passionate about skin care. After all, your makeup is only ever going to be as beautiful as the canvas you paint on. Taking care of your skin (whether or not you wear makeup) is so important. Most days I don’t wear any makeup at all so maintaining a good skin routine is one of my main goals. I love when an awesome product comes along that combines my two loves: skin care and makeup.

Influenster x Olehenriksen

I was recently sent a complimentary product to test from Influenster and Olehenriksen in exchange for my honest review. I love Influenster, I’ve been signed up with them for the past few years and have received so many wonderful products to test. It’s not just beauty and skincare, they have something for everyone based on your interests (food, baby products, electronics, games, apps etc). It’s really easy too, you just sign up with them, link all your socials (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc) and answer some questions about the kinds of products you’re interested in trying out then fill out a few product reviews while you wait. When they reach out to test products, you don’t pay a cent (not even shipping), you just have to post on your socials about the product and do a review of the product. They want your honest feedback so it’s okay if you hate it, you’ll still get products. If you’re interested in signing up I’ve got an Influenster button on the right hand side or you can simply CLICK HERE

Who the heck is Olehenriksen?

Olehenriksen is best known for their cruelty-free, paraben-free, phthalate skin care products. Their products always smell so edible and feel fabulous on the skin, probably because they originally started off in spa. Their products always incorporate ingredients that feed and nourish your skin like vitamin C, AHAs, essential fatty acids and rosehip fruit oil, just to name a few.

Olehenriksen Banana Bright Primer

This is Olehenriksen’s first foray into the makeup world and you best believe they’re bringing their “A” game and doing what they know best, adding elements of top quality skin care to the product.

Ingredients

Olehenriksen is taking their knowledge about skincare and applying it to makeup. This primer features ingredients like vitamin C, and vitamin E. Vitamin C is used in most of their products because it has been shown to be effective in targeting signs of aging and vitamin E is added to help stabilize the vitamin C as well as add extra moisture and condition the skin. Who doesn’t want to work on their skin care game while they’re also working on their makeup game? I think that’s genius. The two really do go hand in hand.

Inspired by the makeup artist must-have—“banana powder”—this subtly sunny makeup primer contains brightening pigments to bring radiance to the entire complexion. Whether it’s worn under makeup, mixed in with foundation, or even worn alone, Banana Bright Face Primer creates a dewy, healthy-looking glow.

– Olehenriksen

How Do You Use This Stuff?

They suggest 3 different ways you can use the product. Even if you’re not really a makeup person, this product can still be for you.

1. Go Bare

You can use this product on your bare skin like a moisturizer to add a nice glow while you blur your pores and give your skin a nice finish for that “I-woke-up-like-this” look.

2. Well duh! Primer

It says it right there in the name, it’s a primer. Normally, primers are applied before your foundation to create a smoother surface and extend the life of your makeup. So you can choose to apply it under your foundation to give your skin a better base for applying your makeup or even mix a few pumps right into your foundation for that illuminated from within look.

3. That Highlight Though

You can also use it as a liquid highlighter by dabbing a little bit onto the high points of your face like your cheekbones, tip of the nose and your brow bone. It’ll give you a subtle natural looking glow.

What’s the Verdict?

As always I just want to share my honest opinions about the product with you. I received the products free for testing but I’m not sponsored or paid for my review so I wanna keep it 100% with you.

Scent

First off I want to mention the scent as some people are sensitive when it comes to perfumes. This product has a very pleasant citric scent that’s not overpowering. It smells so refreshing. I’m not a fan of strong scents and try to get unscented as much as possible and I can tell you this one didn’t bother me. Once I applied it I didn’t even notice the scent.

Texture

The product has a very smooth texture and applies like velvet on the skin. It glides over your skin and feels moisturizing. It certainly did blur my pores and gave an overall smoother appearance. It says it also minimizes wrinkles but I didn’t really notice any difference in this area. I don’t have much wrinkles yet but the few I do have still looked the same to me.

Effectiveness

On Bare Skin

My favourite way to use this product is on bare skin. I loved the natural glow and smooth skin this product gave me. Like I mentioned before, I don’t use makeup on a regular basis so this was like stepping up my moisturizer game. I have fairly dry skin so I loved that this product was able to give me some much needed moisture. If you’ve only got a few minutes in the morning, adding this one product could give your skin that added boost. It has a pearlized finish but isn’t sparkly like some illuminating primers so it gives a beautiful, subtle, natural looking healthy glow. I noticed it made my skin look more even as well. Keep in mind, great skin is a lifestyle choice. No one magic product is a cure all but this definitely helps. If you can, focus on lifestyle changes that give your skin visible results. I suggest checking out this post by Lillies and Lashes for her epic tips to glowing skin.

Under Foundation

When I used the product as it was intended (primer under foundation) I noticed it added a lovely glow to my skin and the makeup application was so smooth. It provided the perfect smooth base for the foundation. I purposely tried it with a matte foundation to see if it could help add some glow and guess what? It worked! It isn’t a crazy glowly look but more of a natural subtle glow. I then added a little on top as well and if you need that extra highlight poppin look, this trick should help. I couldn’t tell if it really extended the wear time of my application but about 6 hours post makeup application everything was still looking good.

Final Thoughts

Overall I thought this was a wonderful primer if you want to add a subtle radiance to your skin. As I mentioned before, if you’re a bare skin kinda person then I think you would love this as an everyday product to help give your skin a little extra oomph. I would totally buy this again but I suggest ordering direct from their website as it’s cheaper than Sephora!