These Products Will Give You the ‘Butter Skin’ Makeup Trend Everyone’s Talking About
Image via @farahomidibeauty
Butter Skin, the latest red carpet-inspired beauty trend, is all about achieving a soft, creamy glow that looks naturally radiant — smooth like butter, but never greasy. Here’s How We Recommend Achieving It.
At this year’s Oscars, a new beauty trend emerged, one that felt less like a fleeting red carpet moment and more like a movement: Butter Skin. Unlike the ultra-glassy, hyper-reflective complexion that has dominated beauty for the past few years, Butter Skin is all about a soft, creamy glow—think satin-finish skin that looks naturally luminous, never oily or overdone.
What Is Butter Skin?
Butter Skin is the latest evolution of the “your skin, but better” aesthetic. It’s about creating a complexion that looks effortlessly smooth and hydrated, with a finish reminiscent of softened butter—melting seamlessly into the skin rather than sitting on top of it. The goal? A radiant, healthy glow with just the right balance between dewiness and velvety softness. It’s a refined, wearable approach to radiance that feels fresh for 2025.
Where Did It Start?
Like many beauty trends, Butter Skin had its red carpet debut at the Oscars, where A-list stars traded in heavy mattifying powders for makeup that enhanced their skin’s natural luminosity. Celebrity makeup artists leaned into buttery textures, blending creamy foundations, sheer bronzers, and balm-like highlighters to achieve that second-skin glow. Model and influencer Aisha Potter helped propel the trend into the mainstream when she posted a behind-the-scenes look at her Oscars night glam, captioning it: “Goes on like butter.” The phrase took off, and just like that, Butter Skin was born.
How to Achieve the Look
The beauty of Butter Skin lies in its approachability—this is a trend that works for everyone, no matter your skin type. The key is hydration, strategic layering, and using products that melt seamlessly into the skin.
Start with deeply hydrating skincare to plump and smooth the skin. Think nourishing serums, lightweight oils, and rich moisturizers that lock in hydration without heaviness. Consider using House of Dohwa Rice Makgeolli Toner, a fermented rice toner packed with amino acids and antioxidants that helps to brighten and deeply hydrate the skin for a soft, supple base. Follow up with ILIA Barrier Build Skin Protectant Cream, a nourishing, ceramide-rich moisturizer that reinforces the skin barrier while delivering long-lasting hydration. For an added boost, try LESSE Ritual Serum, a potent blend of botanicals and antioxidants that works to soothe, hydrate, and even out the skin tone, ensuring a naturally luminous finish.
When selecting your base, opt for a medium-coverage foundation with a natural, satin-like finish—one that offers just enough coverage to even out the skin while allowing natural texture and features (like freckles) to peek through. The Fara Homidi Essential Face Compact is a luxurious cream foundation that delivers a skin-like finish with buildable coverage, offering a hydrated, second-skin effect perfect for the Butter Skin look.
Instead of overloading with full-coverage concealer, choose a lightweight formula that brightens without masking. REFY Brightening and Blurring Serum Concealer is a hydrating, serum-infused concealer that brightens and blurs while delivering a lightweight, skin-like finish.
Swap powder bronzers and blushes for cream-based formulas that blend effortlessly into the skin. A few expert-approved favorites include Kjaer Weis Cream Blush, a certified organic blush that delivers a silky, buildable color with a natural, skin-like finish, and MERIT Bronze Balm Sheer Sculpting Bronzer, a creamy, sheer bronzer that provides a natural warmth and sculpting effect with a smooth, blendable finish.
The secret to achieving Butter Skin is knowing when to powder. Instead of mattifying the entire face, lightly set only the T-zone or areas prone to shine, leaving the rest of the skin with its natural glow. Koh Gen Do Maifanshi Face Powder is a finely milled setting powder that uses natural silk powder to absorb excess oil while maintaining a soft, radiant finish.
Why Butter Skin Feels So Right, Right Now
There’s something about Butter Skin that just makes sense in this beauty era. It’s the perfect middle ground between the intense shine of glass skin and the flat matte finishes of past trends. It feels fresh, modern, and most importantly, achievable.
Butter Skin is a celebration of skin as it is—enhanced, not hidden. And while it may have made its grand entrance at the Oscars, it’s clear that this is a look that’s here to stay.