Inside the Los Angeles Studio Where the Primer Category Was Born
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We may earn commission from links on this page. Each product featured has been vetted and chosen by our editors. Long before makeup primers had their own dedicated aisle at Sephora, before "skin prep" was a TikTok genre, before anyone had a "base routine," there was a silver tube that makeup artists kept slipping into their kits at the end of a shoot at Smashbox—a Los Angeles photography studio that would eventually become one of beauty's most recognizable brands. The year was 1996. The formula didn't even have a name yet, but the artists who used it already knew—this product was a game-changer