Skin Tints Can Be Hit or Miss—15 You’ll Be Instantly Obsessed With

In case you’ve missed it, skin tints have been experiencing a meteoric rise in popularity over the past few months. While I’ll always leave a place in my makeup bag for a mid-coverage foundation and brightening concealer duo, skin tints have also been making an appearance lately. In fact, my ultra-dewy base routine has expanded to include skin tints that are easy-to-use, comfortable to wear all day, and create a gorgeous “your skin, but better” finish.

If that sounds like a tall order, I hear you. While skin tints have definitely worked wonders for my makeup, it’s also worth nothing that they have the tendency to be a hit or miss. Since they lean towards being lightweight and light coverage, it’s fair to wonder if these products can truly target the appearance of fine lines, skin texture, hyperpigmentation. Finding a skin tint that does it all is nearly mythical.

Spoiler alert: there are more than a few that achieve all the above. With the help of my fellow Who What Wear beauty editors and thousands of product reviews across major retailers, I’ve rounded up 15 high-performing skin tints that are the definition of “if you know, you know.”

The Best Skin Tints, at a Glance

1. Best Overall: U Beauty The Super Tinted Hydrator
2. Best With SPF: Ciele Tint & Protect Serum Foundation
3. Best for Medium to Deep Skin Tones: Danessa Myricks Yummy Skin Serum Skin Tint
4. Best for Light to Medium Skin Tones: Chantecaille Just Skin Tinted Moisturizer SPF 15
5. Best for Combination Skin Types: Kosas BB Burst Tinted Gel Cream

The 15 Best Skin Tints of 2024

Best Overall: U Beauty The Super Tinted Hydrator

Best for Correcting Imperfections: Hourglass Veil Hydrating Skin Tint

Best With SPF: Ciele Tint & Protect Serum Foundation

Best for Medium to Deep Skin Tones: Danessa Myricks Yummy Skin Serum Skin Tint

Best for Light to Medium Skin Tones: Chantecaille Just Skin Tinted Moisturizer SPF 15

Best Multipurpose Formula: Typology Tinted Face Serum

Best for All-Day Wear: Saie Slip Tint Tinted Moisturizer

Best for Combination Skin Types: Kosas BB Burst Tinted Gel Cream

Best for Dry Skin Types: Ilia Super Serum Skin Tint SPF 40

Best for Oily Skin Types: Tower 28 SunnyDays SPF 30 Tinted Sunscreen

Best for Sensitive Skin Types: Gee Beauty Prime Skin

Best Skin-Loving Formula: Bobbi Brown Vitamin Enriched Skin Tint

Best Dewy Finish: Almay Skin Perfecting Hydrating Tint

Best Drugstore Option: Covergirl Clean Fresh Skin Milk

Best Luxury Option: Yves Saint Laurent Nu Bare Look Tint Hydrating Skin Tint

What to Look for in a Skin Tint

We’ve given you a pretty good jumping off point (if we do say so ourselves!), but still, navigating the sheer number of options on the market can be a little overwhelming. Here, a few factors to keep in mind as you’re combing the beauty aisles.

• Finish: Are you partial to dewier looks, or do you opt for more of a matte finish? Skin tints will typically lean on the dewy side, but some have a satin-like finish that doesn’t read so glowy (if that’s more your jam). For example, Typology’s tinted serum is capital-D Dewy, while Tower 28’s SunnyDays has more of a natural, skin-like effect.
• Coverage: Skin tints are typically more sheer than foundations, but there’s still a spectrum of coverage to keep in mind. Some offer a lightweight veil of pigment (like U Beauty’s formula), others are denser and more foundation-like (such as YSL’s), and others you can build to your desired level of coverage.
• Skincare ingredients: As we mentioned up top, skin tints tend to be formulated with high-quality actives to help quench dryness (read: hyaluronic acid), smooth fine lines (read: peptides), fade hyperpigmentation (read: vitamin C), and so on. Many also include SPF to offer extra skin protection UV damage, which is often the number one culprit for those aforementioned skin woes.

How We Chose

As with all buying guides here at Who What Wear, we compile our product lists based on original testing. The WWW beauty team personally tried all of the options listed above, offering their favorite formulas and what they would change (if anything) about each one. Testing is important when it comes to how the product actually looks and feels on the skin, so our beauty team made sure to comment on the finish and coverage of each product.

We also pored over ingredient lists for each skin tint, making sure each had good-for-skin actives to simultaneously improve texture and tone. (Skin tints, after all, are known for being skin-makeup hybrids.) Customer reviews are of course important to keep in mind, especially when it comes to TikTok-viral and celebrity-endorsed favorites. That said, we scoured the review sections of our favorite retailers when compiling our list of 15.