2012 Beauty Breakthroughs

Giorgio Armani Maestro Fusion Makeup

An ocean breeze. Four-ply cashmere. Robert Pattinson. There are plenty of things we want to feel against our skin, but foundation isn't one of them. The challenge for cosmetic chemists has always been that the pigments and optical fillers required to even out discoloration have to be suspended in something-usually an oil-and-water emulsion-that distributes them onto skin. Giorgio Armani's innovators developed a new kind of base that is packed with almost nothing but pigment, so your face feels bare but looks flawless.

HOW IT WORKS: The concept is as clever as it is simple: Use ingredients that disappear after they're smoothed on the skin so only the pigment remains. Since water and powder both add weight, Armani chemists instead looked at 10,000 different oils before settling on five. ("And they're not the greasy kind, so you can't even detect them on your skin," says Johan Lundin, international marketing director at Giorgio Armani Beauty.) A few drops of the light fluid allows the pigments to create a uniform layer of color; three of the more volatile oils evaporate quickly, and two are left behind. One contains a sunscreen that protects skin, and the other includes white lotus extract, which has free-radical-busting antioxidant properties. "The combination of these two oils and the film of pigments gives the complexion a semimatte finish," says Lundin.

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