A little hydration goes a long way.
If you’re looking for a reason to forgo foundation, good news: The best tinted moisturizers for mature skin make a compelling case for doing so. More lightweight than their traditional counterparts and, as the name implies, packed with moisturizing ingredients, tinted moisturizers bridge the gap between skin care and makeup, offering a happy medium for everyone, but especially ideal if you’re working with signs of aging, like fine lines and dark spots.
Tinted moisturizers can also streamline your routine, serving as your moisturizer, base makeup, and, in some cases, SPF protection in a single step. And because they have a more weightless feel than foundations for mature skin, they may be more comfortable if you’re in the middle of a heatwave or dealing with high humidity and don’t even want to think about applying primer. (We see you, summer.) Whether you’re looking for sheer coverage to go full weekend warrior or want some complexion-enhancing perks at the beach, these options can deliver. Here’s what you need to know.
While the right tinted moisturizer for your skin will depend on your baseline skin type and individual concerns, some qualities matter more than others when you’re in your 40s and beyond. “I generally choose tinted sunscreens with easy-to-blend textures and buildable coverage for mature skin,” says makeup artist Suzy Gerstein. This way, there is ample coverage to conceal, say, dark spots, but the blendable textures keep the makeup from settling into fine lines and wrinkles.
What’s the difference between a tinted moisturizer and a CC cream for mature skin?
CC cream stands for color-correcting cream, implying that it neutralizes discoloration like redness and hyperpigmentation, whereas a tinted moisturizer doesn’t necessarily color-correct. Rather, it uses a built-in tint (a.k.a., pigments) to conceal skin concerns like blemishes, dark spots, and undereye circles. By the way, a CC cream can also be just that — a cream — whereas tinted moisturizers tend to have a lighter texture.
How to apply tinted moisturizer to mature skin
Apply your tinted moisturizer after using concealer since the initial blurring effect may warrant less coverage from your tinted moisturizer and a more light-handed application. And this can help prevent any creasing and settling into lines and wrinkles.
For the most natural finish, “whether I apply tinted moisturizer with my fingers, a brush, or a sponge, I like to finish by warming my palms together then pressing them onto the face a couple of times,” says Gerstein. “This helps meld the product into the skin so that it becomes one with it and looks like real skin.”
Scroll ahead to discover the best tinted moisturizers for mature skin — and which one might be right for you.
Best Overall: Saie Slip Tint Dewy Tinted Moisturizer SPF 35 Sunscreen
This Allure Best of Beauty Award winner checks all the boxes: The clean formula offers a mineral-based SPF 35, hydrates skin with hyaluronic acid, and pairs sheer coverage with impressive staying power. It works especially hard on the skin-care front, thanks to a lineup of active ingredients like pansy flower and licorice root extract, which help hydrate and brighten skin. Available in 14 shades, the formula itself is also noteworthy, especially if you’re in the market for something lightweight. Rather than sitting on top of the skin or settling into wrinkles, it melts into the complexion to look like your own skin — just a bit perkier.
Best for Dry Skin: Westman Atelier Vital Skincare Dewy Foundation Drops
If the average tinted moisturizer doesn’t offer quite enough moisture for you, good news: This formula just might. The Dewy Foundation Drops lean more toward a tinted face oil, thanks to ingredients like squalane, tsubaki oil, and ginseng, which give skin a radiant, soft, and thoroughly hydrated finish. It doesn’t look overly shiny, the pigments meld with skin in a way that looks natural, and it comes in 20 shades. To get the best results and avoid patchiness, you have to shake the bottle before you dispense it to distribute the ingredients evenly.
Best for Dullness: Laura Mercier Tinted Moisturizer Light Revealer Natural Skin Illuminator
Makeup artist Laura Mercier practically created the tinted moisturizer category, so it’s little surprise her namesake brand made our list. This particular iteration, which is infused with luminescent pearls and comes in 14 shades, diffuses light in a way that gives skin a lit-from-within look and blurs fine lines — all while providing hydration, antioxidants, and sheer, soft-focus coverage. However, it only offers SPF 25, meaning a separate sunscreen is in order.
Best Luxury: Sisley-Paris Phyto-Hydra Teint Tinted Moisturizer
While this is definitely an investment pick, the lightweight formula brings a lot to the table for mature skin types. It emphasizes the skin-care aspect of tinted moisturizer with a blend of botanical ingredients like grapefruit and kiwi selected to brighten skin, even tone, and hydrate. Translation: You’ll get long-term results in addition to on-the-spot benefits. It also has medium coverage that doesn’t shift or oxidize throughout the day. The only drawback is that there are only four shade offerings. While that’s not always a dealbreaker for a tinted moisturizer, which tends to be sheerer and more forgiving than foundation, it can make finding the right tone match very limited and tricky.
Best Drugstore: Neutrogena Healthy Skin Perfector
This easy-to-blend formula gets a lot of things right: It includes retinol for under-the-radar firming and brightening benefits and imparts a radiant finish to skin while delivering enough coverage to conceal redness and fine lines. Since it uses chemical sunscreen filters, there’s no chalky finish to worry about and antioxidants beef up protection against environmental aggressors. The only downside is that the sun protection, while broad-spectrum and a nice touch, is lower than the SPF 30 recommended by the American Academy of Dermatology, so you’ll need to layer it over a separate sunscreen with SPF 30 or higher to get adequate protection. And it’s available in only six shades.
Best for Dark Spots: Nars Pure Radiant Tinted Moisturizer Broad Spectrum SPF 30
To make quick work of dark spots (which often fade on their own, but it can take months), a two-part, repair-and-prevention approach is key. Therein is the magic of this tinted moisturizer, which offers both. Vitamin C serves as an antioxidant and also interferes with the pigment-production process. Meanwhile, the mineral-based SPF 30 prevents UV light from undoing all of that hard work. While those ingredients help fade dark spots over time, the buildable coverage (in 16 shades) works to hide them on the spot — giving you the best of both worlds.
Makeup artist Ashleigh Ciucci has told us she’s a fan, noting it’s ideal for applying with fingers as “it’s super sheer and easy to blend,” she said. “Or you can tap it on with a sponge to build subtle coverage.”
Best for Sensitive Skin: Tower 28 Beauty SunnyDays SPF 30 Tinted Sunscreen Foundation
For a one-and-done product on no-makeup makeup days, look no further than Tower 28’s SunnyDays. Designed with sensitive skin in mind, this is a sunscreen first, but with additional skin-care benefits and lightweight coverage. The 17 shades get their soothing and nourishing properties from a combination of prickly pear and aloe vera and the light-to-medium coverage won’t oxidize over the course of the day. Better yet, it’s fragrance-free, noncomedogenic, and has a stamp of approval from the National Eczema Association, making it a great option for all skin types, mature included.
Best Multipurpose: Monika Blunder Blunder Cover All in One Foundation
While it’s technically billed as a foundation, this hybrid formula is what you make of it. You can wear it sheer as a tinted moisturizer, apply it as a concealer, or layer it for more coverage. The brainchild of celebrity makeup artist Monika Blunder, whose clients include Gemma Chan and Megan Fox, the creamy formula is infused with arnica and edelweiss as well as botanical jojoba and safflower seed oils making it as nourishing as it is versatile. And with 20 shades, it’s a cinch to find the right match.
Best for Deep Skin Tones: Ami Colé Skin Enhancing Tint
While tinted moisturizer tends to be sheer by design, making an imperfect shade match more forgiving, many ranges still don’t account for darker skin tones. But the six shades of this tint account for melanin-rich skin and its unique undertones, making a perfect match more likely. Plus, it feels like nothing on the skin. And the formula is packed with baobab seed, pumpkin seed, and hibiscus extracts that hydrate and provide antioxidant protection.
Best for Oily Skin: Armani Beauty Neo Nude Tinted Moisturizer with Hyaluronic Acid
While slick stuff isn’t always the enemy for those with oily skin, oils still may not be ideal if you’re trying to avoid shine. That’s what sets apart this tinted moisturizer that comes in 21 shades. Although it’s oil-free, it offers a hydrating combination of hyaluronic acid and glycerin, two humectants that draw in moisture and deliver hydration. The formula provides light coverage but is pigmented enough to even out skin tone.
Best Sheer: YSL Beauty Nu Bare Look Hydrating Skin Tint
This formula is more moisturizer than makeup due to a combination of hyaluronic acid, glycerin, and mallow. It imparts a dewy finish and just enough coverage to look polished, but not fully made up. The flexible formula moves with the skin and is less likely to crease or settle into fine lines, plus, it comes in a relatively large range of 20 shades.
