Few products come with such high expectations as the Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk Foundation. Not only does it promise a lot by claiming to give luminous, glowing skin, a silk finish, even skin tone, and skincare benefits, but it’s also one of the most expensive foundations we’ve tried. It has garnered almost a cult following, as a result, while also winning multiple awards.
And in the most part, it lived up to these expectations. The coverage and finish definitely live up to the claims. In fact, we’d go as far as to say they exceeded our expectations and did what we had previously deemed to be impossible – offer the almost perfect balance of radiant, yet velvet-smooth, balanced and even skin.
Despite being lightweight, the foundation lasted better than we expected, too. Patches of oil did start to appear as the day wore on, as did areas of redness, but not to the extent other similarly lightweight foundations have in the past. In fact, this medium-coverage foundation lasted better than some of the best full-coverage foundations we’ve tried.
The foundation even lived up to the claims of offering skincare benefits. Over our six-week Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk foundation review period, our skin was noticeably more plump and hydrated. It felt and looked more balanced and was less inflamed and red. It didn’t completely solve our skincare woes, but it definitely made a dent.
The biggest downside is that all of these benefits come at a price. At £45 – or even £27 for the 18ml travel-sized version – this foundation will be out of reach of many people. This is a huge shame because it does live up to the hype and we feel a lot of people would love it. If you can afford it, it’s a worthwhile investment.
Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk foundation alternatives: If you can’t afford the Luminous Silk foundation but want a cheaper option with similar coverage, finish, and benefits we highly recommend the L’Oreal True Match (£9.99); Physician’s Formula The Healthy Foundation (£14.59).
| Armani | From £27 |
| Lookfantastic | £45 |
| Sephora | £45 |
| Boots | From £27 |
In our Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk Foundation review, we put the cult foundation to the test to see if it lives up to the hype and is worth the money – or worth avoiding
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How we tested Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk
Armani Luminous Silk foundation shade guide
How to apply the Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk foundation
Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk foundation: Before and after
Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk foundation: Coverage and finish
Giorgio Armani isn’t just a designer fashion brand, it also sells a high-end makeup line aimed at giving premium results (albeit for a hefty price.)
A lot of its makeup products are aimed at more mature consumers and promise to meet a range of needs by combining the best formulas with added skincare benefits.
One of its bestselling lines is the Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk collection, which includes a foundation and a concealer designed to create a luminous, radiant, and silky finish, even and natural-looking coverage, coupled with anti-ageing and hydrating skincare benefits.
This foundation has developed a cult following, it’s won multiple awards and is said to be a makeup artist favourite, but does it live up to the hype?
To find out, we recently embarked on a six-week Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk Foundation review.
Read on to discover what we thought of the coverage, finish, staying power, and skincare benefits to see if it’s really worth the £45 price tag.
We also explain more choosing the best shade in our Luminous Silk foundation shade guide.
Buy now from Boots
mamabella | mamabella There are two products in the Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk range – the Luminous Silk foundation (pictured) and the Luminous Silk concealer
There are two products in the Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk range – the Luminous Silk foundation and the Luminous Silk concealer.
The Luminous Silk range is described as offering buildable medium coverage with a luminous finish. If you prefer a different coverage or finish, the wider Armani foundation range includes:
If you’re not sure which foundation you need, take the Giorgio Armani foundation quiz.
mamabella | mamabella The Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk foundation provides a luminous, natural finish. Available in 40 shades
What is Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk? A favourite among makeup artists, the Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk foundation is – as the name suggests – a silky foundation that provides a luminous, natural finish. It promises glowing skin that “improves texture and blurs imperfections”, and it contains glycerin for hydration. Available in 40 shades.
Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk price: £45 (30ml)
How to apply Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk foundation: Armani recommends applying the Luminous Silk foundation with a foundation brush (it recommends its own Maestro Signature Blender Brush) before buffing it out for an even finish. You can add more layers if the coverage isn’t enough, or you can mix with a highlighter to accentuate the glow.
Who should use Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk? Suitable for all skin types but it’s a particularly good foundation for mature skin, as well as for dry complexions.
Where to buy: Armani | Lookfantastic | Sephora | Boots
Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk alternatives: L’Oreal True Match (£9.99); Physician’s Formula The Healthy Foundation (£14.59)
WANT TO KNOW MORE? Best concealer | Best makeup brush | Best foundation brush | Best eyeshadow palette | Best foundation | Best foundation for dark skin | Best foundation for oily skin | Best foundation for dry skin | Best contour kit | Best lip gloss | Best lip liner | Best mascara| Best primer | Best highlighter | Best brow pomade | Best blusher | Best setting spray| Best makeup sets | Best false eyelashes | Best eyeliner | Best setting powder | Best eyelash curlers
For our Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk foundation review, we used it as our main foundation each and every time we wore makeup for six weeks.
We typically test foundations for a month, however, given the fact that Armani talks about the Luminous Silk Foundation having skincare benefits, we wanted to give it time to make a difference. This is because skin tends to renew itself every six weeks meaning it can take a while to see the benefits of any skincare products. You can read more in our How we test skincare to see if it lives up to its claims.
We applied the foundation using a foundation brush before using a damp beauty blender to melt it into the skin. We also applied it using a stippling brush followed by a soft powder brush, as well as with our fingers to see which gave the best results.
The rest of our makeup routine remained the same. This allowed us to more accurately see how the Armani foundation looked and lasted compared to other foundations we wear regularly.
mamabella | mamabella The 40 Luminous Silk shades are divided into three undertones and five skin tones
There are 40 Luminous Silk shades available. They are available in Cool, Neutral, and Warm undertones and Fair, Light, Medium, Tan, and Deep shade ranges. The Luminous Silk foundation shade guide is explained below and in the image above.
The image also shows which Luminous Silk concealer best matches which foundation shade and Armani suggests buying a shade lighter than you need it you want to brighten the skin.
We explain more about finding your perfect shade in our foundation shade match guide.
Cool skin types usually have pink, red or blush undertones.
Neutral skin is neither cool nor warm, meaning it has a balance of pink and yellow undertones.
Warm skin tends to have yellow, orange, or gold undertones.
If you’re still not sure, Armani also allows you to virtually try each Luminous Silk shade by clicking the Try It On button.
Armani recommends applying the Luminous Silk foundation with a foundation brush before buffing it out for an even finish.
During our Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk foundation review period, we tried a number of different methods of application and the best results we got were when we used a flat-top buffing brush (we recommend the £15 Morphe M6 Pro Flat Buffer Brush) with a damp beauty blender.
FURTHER READING: Best foundation brush for liquid and powder foundations, concealers and more | Makeup brushes 101: How to use different types of makeup brushes
The image below shows our Luminous Silk Foundation before and after results. We have Light skin with neutral undertones so opted for the shade 4.5 which we feel was a great match.
mamabella | mamabella The Luminous Silk foundation gives medium coverage and a natural finish
Living up to its name, the Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk foundation creates a luminous, naturally radiant finish that feels and looks like silk when first applied. This is no mean feat.
The majority of luminous or radiant foundations we’ve tried have a sheer finish that has a tendency to look almost shiny. While foundations that smooth and mattify the skin as well as this Armani foundation does then tend to flatten the complexion.
Being able to almost perfectly balance the two means the Luminous Silk foundation creates one of the most natural-looking and healthy finishes of any foundation we’ve tried. We’d even go as far as to say it makes us look youthful. Its lightweight formula also means it doesn’t settle into our wrinkles or fine lines, and the subtle luminosity brightens our eye area while helping to lift other shadows across the face.
As you can see in the before and after photo above, one pump of the foundation is enough to cover imperfections, blur the complexion and reduce redness, creating a balanced, even finish. This is the perfect balance for us because our 38-year-old, acne-prone, oily skin doesn’t like full-coverage foundations. They have a tendency to feel heavy, look cakey, and have our skin screaming at the end of the day.
That said, if you prefer (or need) fuller coverage, this foundation is buildable allowing you to create the perfect, desired coverage.
mamabella | mamabella This is the Luminous Silk foundation in the shade 4.5 – which is for neutral, light skin. On our hand it comes up slightly peachy, but on our face it was a much closer match
We say that the Luminous Silk “almost perfectly” balances coverage and finish because, over the course of the day, the overall effect does have a tendency to drop. By midday, oily patches on our nose and forehead started to peek through and by the end of the day, our redness became more noticeable. That said, this foundation didn’t make our skin feel greasy at any point and to look at us, you’d barely notice these changes. We only really saw them because we know how good our skin looked at the start of the day.
Over the course of our six-week Luminous Silk foundation review period, we also noticed that our oiliness and redness improved generally. Even when we weren’t wearing the foundation. Again, not enough to shift the dial and solve all of our skincare concerns, but enough to notice. What’s more, as our oiliness became more balanced, the foundation’s coverage and finish lasted much longer throughout the day.
This suggests that if you have combination skin, or skin that is oily but not overly so, this foundation could help balance your complexion. It may not be suitable for really oily skin though, as it has a tendency to melt off. Even when setting powder and spray are applied.
Another complaint is that while the glass bottle makes this foundation feel sleek and luxurious, we almost smashed it twice when it fell over in our makeup draw. This is a very minor, and possibly unique problem to us, but at the price of this foundation it had us worried each time. It also worried us when we put the foundation bottle in our suitcase for a mini-break.
Elsewhere, the pump dispenser can be a bit tricky to control. It’s easy to dispense more product than you need, leading to potential wastage. Again, at the price of this foundation, any wasted product is annoying.
Buy now from Boots
@victoria_woolly_web Day 53: @GiorgioArmaniOfficial Luminous Silk – this one is pricey but popular it seems #fyp #fypシ #SuperShow #foundations #mamabella #foundationtest #foundationreview #giorgio #giorgioarmani #luminoussilk ♬ Sunroof – Nicky Youre & dazy
@victoria_woolly_web Based on previous hydration tests, this is around average. Not too drying but doesn’t flood the skin – given its price I expected more but given that it promises a silk finish, this score seems about right #fyp #fypシ #viral #mamabella #foundationtest #foundations #foundationreview #foundation #bestfoundation #bestfoundationuk #bestfoundationever #bestfoundationforoilyskin #bestfoundationformatureskin #giorgioarmani #luminoussilkfoundation #luminoussilk @D @. ♬ BREAK MY SOUL – Beyoncé
Few products come with such high expectations as the Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk Foundation. Not only does it promise a lot by claiming to give luminous, glowing skin, a silk finish, even skin tone, and skincare benefits, but it’s also one of the most expensive foundations we’ve tried. It has garnered almost a cult following, as a result, while also winning multiple awards.
And in the most part, it lived up to these expectations. The coverage and finish definitely live up to the claims. In fact, we’d go as far as to say they exceeded our expectations and did what we had previously deemed to be impossible – offer the almost perfect balance of radiant, yet velvet-smooth, balanced and even skin.
Despite being lightweight, the foundation lasted better than we expected, too. Patches of oil did start to appear as the day wore on, as did areas of redness, but not to the extent other similarly lightweight foundations have in the past. In fact, this medium-coverage foundation lasted better than some of the best full-coverage foundations we’ve tried.
mamabella | mamabella Over our six-week Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk foundation review period, our skin was noticeably more plump and hydrated. It felt and looked more balanced and was less inflamed and red
The foundation even lived up to the claims of offering skincare benefits. Over our six-week Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk foundation review period, our skin was noticeably more plump and hydrated. It felt and looked more balanced and was less inflamed and red. It didn’t completely solve our skincare woes, but it definitely made a dent.
The biggest downside is that all of these benefits come at a price. At £45 – or even £27 for the 18ml travel-sized version – this foundation will be out of reach of many people. This is a huge shame because it does live up to the hype and we feel a lot of people would love it. If you can afford it, it’s a worthwhile investment.
Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk foundation alternatives: If you can’t afford the Luminous Silk foundation but want a cheaper option with similar coverage, finish, and benefits we highly recommend the L’Oreal True Match (£9.99); Physician’s Formula The Healthy Foundation (£14.59).
The following list of ingredients is taken from the INCI Decoder website. You can hover over each ingredient to find out more about it.
The numbers next to each ingredient represent its Irritation Rating (the number to the left of the comma), and then Comedogenic Rating (to the right of the comma).
Both ratings are scored out of five and the higher the number, the higher the chance of it causing irritation, or comedones (spots). Green means it has a low rating so is less likely to cause problems. Yellow and red numbers represent high ratings and are more likely to cause problems.
sii|h 0 0, Isododecane emo|solv, Alcohol Denat 
amic|solv|vc, Polyglyceryl-4 Isostearate emu, Cetyl PEG/PPG-10/1 Dimethicone emu|surf, Hexyl Laurate emo, Aluminum Starch Octenylsuccinate vc, Disteardimonium Hectorite vc, Phenoxyethanol pres, Acetylated Glycol Stearate emo, Magnesium Sulfate vc, PEG-10 Dimethicone emu, Trihydroxystearin vc, Cellulose Gum vc 0 0, Nylon-12 vc, Limonene perf|solv, Benzyl Salicylate perf, Benzyl Alcohol pres|perf|solv|vc, Linalool perf, Pentaerythrityl Tetra-Di-T-Butyl Hydroxyhydrocinnamate aox|pres, Isobutane, Diphenyl Dimethicone emo|emu, Acrylonitrile/Methyl Methacrylate/Vinylidene Chloride Copolymer, Parfum/Fragrance perf, Disodium Stearoyl Glutamate surf, Methylparaben pres 0 0, Butylphenyl Methylpropional perf, Aluminum Hydroxide emo|h|vc, Hexyl Cinnamal perfHover the mouse / tap over an ingredient for short explanation. Read more on INCIDecoder.
Victoria is founder and editor-in-chief of mamabella, freelance journalist and Mum. She has a passion for empowering people to feel beautiful whatever their age, size, skin type and budget
