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The hybrid beauty market is projected to double by 2034. Here’s what it actually means when a foundation contains niacinamide — and the formulas making a credible case for doing both — from foundation to mascara.
The Jones Road Miracle Balm looks like something that migrated from a medicine cabinet — a small pot with spare branding and an ingredient list that reads more like a facial oil than a blush. Bobbi Brown launched the label in 2020, four years after leaving the brand she’d spent 25 years building, and it became the shorthand people reached for when they tried to explain what had shifted in their beauty routines. The Miracle Balm is castor seed oil, beeswax, argan, jojoba, and vitamin E pressed into pigment; it works as a blush, bronzer, highlighter, and, critically, a moisturizer. It’s part of a growing movement of double-duty makeup-as-skincare, or skincare-as-makeup, if you prefer.
What Brown built around that balm has since expanded into a hybrid category that’s showing no sign of slowing. The global hybrid beauty market — products that function simultaneously as makeup and active skincare — was valued at more than $8 billion in 2025 and is on track to reach $17 billion by 2034.
Where dermatologists land is more conditional than either the marketing or the skepticism suggests. “Skin care-infused makeup can be effective, but its benefits depend on the formulation and concentration of active ingredients,” Dr. Amy Spizuoco, a board-certified dermatologist and dermatopathologist, told Today. “While it won’t replace a dedicated skin care routine, it can provide added hydration, sun protection or antioxidant support throughout the day.” Board-certified dermatologist Deanne Mraz, MD, FAAD, says that skin care needs to be layered strategically for optimal absorption and efficiency. “So, while applying a foundation that contains skin care ingredients may provide skin care benefits, like hydration and antioxidant protection, the dosage is likely too small to achieve the intended results,” she told Today. Which is, in fairness, what the better hybrid brands have been saying all along: the goal is not to replace a skin care routine but to extend its benefits into the hours you’re wearing color.
What the formula needs to actually do
The criteria for a hybrid that actually delivers are fairly specific: functional actives at concentrations that register in a makeup formula; mineral SPF when SPF is claimed (because mineral filters sit cleanly over pigment without the reactivity issues chemical screens can introduce), no fragrance, which tends to undo whatever the rest of the formula is trying to accomplish, and lipids at the base — plant-based squalane, jojoba, camellia seed oil — that absorb like skin’s own sebum rather than deposit an occlusive layer over it.
The best clean hybrid skincare products
ILIA’s Super Serum Skin Tint was the product that gave the category its proof of concept. It opens with 12 percent non-nano zinc oxide for mineral SPF, then layers in sodium hyaluronate, squalane, and niacinamide — at concentrations that function. It is, in the most precise sense, a serum that is also a foundation. Westman Atelier’s Vital Skincare Complexion Drops carries a Skin Vitality Complex of tsubaki oil, ginseng, and pomegranate extract alongside squalane and avocado oil — a serum-tint built around improving bare skin quality over time rather than covering it.
Jones Road Miracle Balm
The most convincing argument the category has made. The Jones Road Miracle Balm works on cheeks, lips, lids, and collarbones and leaves skin more hydrated after application than before. No primer required.
Jones Road What The Foundation
Brown’s other hybrid worth knowing: jojoba, squalane, sodium hyaluronate, and ginger root oil in a tinted moisture balm that blurs imperfections rather than covers them. Light-to-medium and buildable; the formula excludes cyclic silicones, petrolatum, and phthalates. Brown calls it her everyday foundation.
ILIA Super Serum Skin Tint SPF 40
Led by 12 percent non-nano zinc oxide for mineral SPF, with niacinamide, squalane, and hyaluronic acid at concentrations that register. One of the few skin tints where the sunscreen is doing actual sunscreen work. Plus, every bottle of this top selling product supports reforestation with a portion of proceeds going to the restoration nonprofit, One Tree Planted.
Westman Atelier Suprême Bio-Complex Liquid Foundation With Exosomes + Peptides
Gucci Westman‘s background as a makeup artist shows up in the liquid foundation delivering a flawless and natural coverage. The formula feels weightless on the skin as it smooths and blurs while giving skin a naturally hydrated, brighter-looking finish. A blend of peptides, vitamin B3, amino acids, and antioxidant-rich botanical extracts helps firm, soothe, and improve the look of fine lines.
Supergoop Protec(tint) Daily Skin Tint SPF 50 ($48)
Built from 83 percent skincare ingredients — ectoin for anti-inflammatory and barrier support, sodium hyaluronate, and tocopherol — in a tinted SPF that leads with sun protection and arrives at coverage as a secondary benefit. Fragrance-free, no parabens, no harsh alcohols.
Dr. Jart+ Premium BB Tinted Moisturizer
The BB cream that reintroduced the category to the Western prestige market. Two percent niacinamide and five percent glycerin handle the skincare work; titanium dioxide and zinc oxide alongside chemical filters cover SPF 40. Not fragrance-free — citrus oils are present — but the actives are legitimate and the formula has lasted because of them.
ILIA Balmy Tint Hydrating Lip Balm
Salicornia (sea succulent), rosehip seed oil, and shea butter in a tinted balm that was originally the brand’s very first product. The formula conditions the lip barrier rather than coating it, and the color wears sheer enough to apply without a mirror.
Summer Fridays Lip Butter Balm
The top beauty product by Sephora online sales in 2025, which is its own kind of credential. Murumuru butter and shea butter in a formula that has persuaded a meaningful portion of the market to stop buying separate lip treatments and lip colors.
ILIA Limitless Lash Mascara
Arginine, biotin, myristoyl pentapeptide-17, organic shea butter, and beeswax — ingredients that condition and strengthen lashes the way a serum would, in a formula that also lengthens and separates. The mascara removes with warm water, and the lash-serum properties are not a marketing claim.
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