6 Best Foundations for Sensitive Skin with Acne to Prevent Breakouts and Irritation

Many skin care and cosmetics are formulated for sensitive skin, or acne-prone skin, but not for both. In fact, sensitive skin has such a range of possible reactions, including acne, that it can be difficult to care for. It can be impossible to find a foundation with the coverage to conceal acne, without aggravating sensitive skin. In this post we are taking a closer look at specifically sensitive acne-prone skin to learn how best to care for it and reveal the 6 best foundations for sensitive skin with acne.

Table of Contents

• What is the best foundation for sensitive skin with acne?
  • Neutrogena Skin Clearing Makeup
  • Great for: Sensitive skin, acne-prone skin, oily skin
  • Tarte Amazonian Clay 12 Hour Full Coverage Foundation
  • Great for: Sensitive skin, acne prone skin, oily skin
  • Nourisse Natural 100% Pure Mineral Foundation Sunscreen Powder
  • Great for: Sensitive skin, oily skin
  • Emani Vegan Cosmetics Flawless Matte Pressed Powder Foundation
  • Great for: Sensitive skin, dry skin, mature skin
  • e.l.f. Cosmetics Acne Fighting Foundation
  • Great for: Acne-prone skin, dry skin
  • BaeBlu Organic Aloe-Based LUX Liquid Foundation
  • Great for: Sensitive skin, dry skin, mature skin
• Choosing Foundation for Sensitive Skin with Acne
  • Avoid
  • Adopt
• What is Sensitive Skin?
  • External products penetrate the skin more deeply
  • Internal immune reactions
• How to Tell if You Have Sensitive Skin
• How to Learn More About Your Sensitive Skin Needs
  • Keep a skin diary
  • Reduce exfoliation
  • Reduce products and ingredients
  • Buy separate products
• Best Foundation for Sensitive Skin with Acne: Cover up while Fighting the Breakouts

What is the best foundation for sensitive skin with acne?

Here are our top 6 picks for best foundation for sensitive skin with acne.

1. Neutrogena Skin Clearing Makeup
2. Tarte Amazonian Clay 12 Hour Full Coverage Foundation
3. Nourisse Natural 100% Pure Mineral Foundation Sunscreen Powder
4. Emani Vegan Cosmetics Flawless Matte Pressed Powder Foundation
5. e.l.f. Cosmetics Acne Fighting Foundation
6.  Almay Clear Complexion Makeup

After going through our recommendations, learn more about how to care for this particular skin type by reading more below!

Neutrogena Skin Clearing Makeup

Great for: Sensitive skin, acne-prone skin, oily skin

Neutrogena is famous for being gentle on sensitive skin, and their Skin Clearing Makeup foundation provides light, natural coverage with acne-fighting ingredients to help unclog pores and clear breakouts. This foundation has an oil-free, non-greasy formula that is great for oily and combination skin, while being gentle enough for sensitive skin. In a clinical trial, 100% of women who used this makeup had improved skin over time, which is an incredible result. This Neutrogena foundation is recommended by users and experts alike for sensitive, acne-prone skin.

Tarte Amazonian Clay 12 Hour Full Coverage Foundation

Great for: Sensitive skin, acne prone skin, oily skin

Amazonian clay has become famous around the world for gently and effectively controlling acne and improving skin. Tarte’s Amazonian Clay 12 Hour Full Coverage Foundation gives light, natural coverage in an oil-free, vegan formula that covers breakouts while balancing your skin. With vitamin E, mineral pigments, and Amazonian clay, this foundation doesn’t have any gluten, parabens, mineral oil, or other ingredients that can trigger sensitive skin. This is the choice for you if you’re looking for a best full coverage foundation for sensitive skin.

Nourisse Natural 100% Pure Mineral Foundation Sunscreen Powder

Great for: Sensitive skin, oily skin

This unusual mineral sunscreen powder from Nourisse is a pure mineral formula that provides exceptional sun protection and light coverage with no ingredients that can exacerbate sensitive skin. This zinc-based sunscreen powder protects from UVA and UVB rays with 50+ SPF, is water resistant, and long-lasting. The powder doesn’t contain fragrances, preservatives, parabens, PABA, or chemicals.

Nourisse’s sunscreen powder foundation comes with complementary light and dark powders, so you can customize your shade or do light contouring. It also has buildable coverage and can be dabbed onto problem areas as a concealer. This sunscreen powder is lightweight, versatile, natural, and provides great coverage.

A great alternative for this is the Colorescience Brush-on Sunscreen.

Emani Vegan Cosmetics Flawless Matte Pressed Powder Foundation

Great for: Sensitive skin, dry skin, mature skin

The Emani Vegan Cosmetics Flawless Matte Pressed Powder Foundation is a natural, vegan formula with skin-boosting ingredients like vitamin E. It has no silicon, parabens, or chemicals, and is free of animal products, wheat, gluten, and is cruelty free. It is talc-free, blendable, buildable, and a powder that actually hydrates while it covers. This light, natural, mineral formula is perfect for sensitive, acne-prone skin, and also a great choice for mature skin, as it doesn’t settle into fine lines and creases.

e.l.f. Cosmetics Acne Fighting Foundation

Great for: Acne-prone skin, dry skin

The light liquid of e.l.f. Cosmetics Acne Fighting Foundation evens skin tone and provides light, blendable coverage with skin-healing and acne-fighting ingredients. It’s infused with salicylic acid, witch hazel, tea tree oil, and aloe vera to soothe skin, reduce acne and inflammation. It helps to cover the breakouts you have now, and prevent breakouts in the future, improving skin over time. This affordable foundation is also vegan and cruelty-free, so you can feel good about using it.

BaeBlu Organic Aloe-Based LUX Liquid Foundation

Great for: Sensitive skin, dry skin, mature skin

We love BaeBlu’s Organic Natural Vegan Gluten-Free Lux Liquid foundation for sensitive skin, because it’s organic, vegan, natural, with no chemicals or parabens, and no pore-clogging ingredients that exacerbate acne. With gentle, skin-friendly ingredients like aloe, shea butter, rice powder, and mineral pigments, this makeup gives great, buildable, non-drying coverage that is healthy for sensitive skin.

Another great option for foundation for dry acne prone skin is the Almay Clear Complexion Makeup, which is hypoallergenic and fragrance free. These qualities in the formulation, and the fact it’s dermatologist-tested, makes it a great foundation for acne prone sensitive skin.

Choosing Foundation for Sensitive Skin with Acne

Most acne fighting foundations with full coverage for breakouts can be too harsh and heavy for delicate, sensitive skin. Many acne foundations are designed for oily skin, while sensitive skin is often dry.

Depending on your skin’s needs, here are some things to avoid and adopt:

Avoid

Common irritants, particularly if you don’t know what triggers your sensitive skin, read labels and avoid the most common skin irritants like talc, mineral oil, and fragrances.

Adopt

1. Patch testing

When trying new makeup, it’s a great idea for people with sensitive skin to do a patch test 24 hours before on the inside of their elbows.

2. Mineral makeup

Mineral makeup can be great for sensitive skin, as is has fewer ingredients, is more natural, and provides smooth coverage. This makeup is also a good choice for oily skin, as is absorb oil without a greasy look. Powdered mineral makeup can sometimes exacerbate dry skin, so you may need a liquid formula.

3. Buildable coverage

Sensitive skin can be different every day, and your coverage needs will vary. Opt for foundation with a lighter coverage that you can build as necessary, to meet your changing needs, rather than a heavy, full-coverage foundation targeted at acne coverage.

What is Sensitive Skin?

It may seem sometimes like “sensitive skin” is just a marketing term, because it’s applied to such a broad range of skin problems. From a dermatologists perspective, sensitive skin is usually a symptom, not a diagnosis. So what is sensitive skin, really?

To begin with, there are two types of sensitive skin. There is a genetic predisposition to sensitive skin in people of Northern European descent, where the skin reacts more strongly to sunlight and irritants. This is partially because this type of skin has a naturally thinner top layer, and because the reduced amount of pigment in this type of skin shows redness and irritation more easily. The other type of sensitive skin is called “sensitized” skin, where the skin becomes sensitive and reactive due to lifestyle and environmental factors. Over half of the world’s population will experience sensitized skin at some point in their lives.

Sensitive skin is caused by a natural or acquired thinning of the outer layer of the skin. When the stratum corneum (the outermost layer of the skin) or the acid mantle (our skin’s natural oily external film) become disrupted, a few things happen:

External products penetrate the skin more deeply

For people with thin, sensitive skin, allergens, detergents, fragrances, and other products penetrate the outer layers of the skin more deeply. The skin’s natural barriers are weakened, so it is more vulnerable.

Internal immune reactions

In many cases, when these products and ingredients deeply penetrate the skin, it triggers an inflammatory response from the immune system. With our exterior protective layers damaged, the immune system can react to these products and ingredients as a potential threat, and cause a reaction.

The stratum corneum and acid mantle protect the skin and the body from bacteria and injury, so when they are thin and damaged, the skin becomes over-reactive, trying to protect itself through other means. It is also natural for skin to become more sensitive as we age and the skin layers begin to get thinner and weaker.

How to Tell if You Have Sensitive Skin

Unfortunately, the signs of sensitive skin run the full spectrum of every other kind of skin problem.

Sensitive skin can be dry, irritated, flakey or peeling, red, itchy, or prone to rashes, hives, and acne.

One of the primary ways that most people discover that they have sensitive skin is when they try to address their acne with acne products which don’t work, try to manage their dryness with moisturizers that don’t work, and try to cover their redness with concealers that don’t work. People with sensitive skin often end up chasing one problem after another, without finding a comprehensive solution. In fact, that’s one of the key signs of sensitive skin: Skincare treatments intended to solve common skin problems tend to make things worse instead of better.

Other common signs of sensitive skin are:

• The skin is prone to bumps, hives, and rashes
• Ordinary beauty products sting, burn, or cause redness
• Dry patches on skin
• Skin feels tight, dry, and itchy
• The skin is sensitive to the sun or to cold, windy weather
• Skin prone to breakouts
• The skin may have broken capillaries and bruise easily

To further complicate matters, many people with sensitive skin don’t have sensitivity all the time. Sensitivity may be seasonal, a reaction to certain products and ingredients, triggered by stress, hormones, or medications. In other words, sensitive skin is perhaps the most difficult to care for because the reactions can be so diverse, and the causes so inconsistent.

How to Learn More About Your Sensitive Skin Needs

If your skin is newly sensitive, or experiencing a sudden change, it’s always a good idea to see a dermatologist. Skin sensitivity can be a sign of other medical conditions, and is often associated with eczema, rosacea, and other conditions a dermatologist can help you manage. If you aren’t sure if you have sensitive skin, or what triggers your sensitivity, read the following tips.

Keep a skin diary

If you suspect that allergies, weather, foods, hormones, or skincare products are irritating your skin, keep a diary that tracks what products you are using, or other suspected triggers, and what condition your skin is in. It can be helpful to keep track so you can identify recurring factors.

Reduce exfoliation

If you think you have sensitive skin, only exfoliate as gently as possible or not at all. Until you have identified your sensitive skin needs, harsh exfoliants, facial peels, microderm abrasions, and other treatments may damage your already thin, fragile skin.

Though there are chemical exfoliants for sensitive skin, so check those out before trying other peeling methods.

Reduce products and ingredients

Fragrances are a very common source of sensitive skin reaction.

Until you have identified your needs and triggers, try to reduce your skin care regimen to have fewer products, and choose skincare with fewer, simpler, more natural ingredients.

It can be helpful to take all the products out of your regimen and add them back one by one, to see which ones are triggering a reaction.

Buy separate products

While it can be convenient and time-saving to choose double- and triple-duty products, it can complicate caring for sensitive skin.

Choose a separate foundation, sunscreen, moisturizers,  and avoid all-in-ones until you know what your skin needs.

Best Foundation for Sensitive Skin with Acne: Cover up while Fighting the Breakouts

As you can see, there are some amazing choices for best foundation for sensitive skin that provide just the right amount of coverage without irritating sensitive skin with acne. Whether you have mature skin, delicate skin, dry skin, oily skin, or a combination of them all, you can find acne fighting foundations that will help to smooth the appearance of delicate, sensitive skin, without ingredients that aggravate or irritate it.

Our recommendations for the best foundations for sensitive skin with acne will help you find just the right makeup for your sensitive skin needs, whatever they are.

If your skin acts up but you still want to look good, check out our recommendations for foundations for textured skin.

Related posts on the blog:

• Best Natural Moisturizer for Rosacea
• Foundation That Doesn’t Settle Into Wrinkles
• Best Foundation Brush

Let us know if you have already used any of these foundations, in the comments section below!