Foundation — a swamplink research property
Thirteen foundations, from a $8 drugstore bottle to a $60 one, compared ingredient by ingredient. Every list is the manufacturer's own declaration to the FDA.
226 distinct ingredients appear across 13 foundations, and 126 of them (55%) appear in exactly one product. Only 6 ingredients show up in three-quarters or more of them. Foundations are not one formula in thirteen bottles — but they are built on a very small common spine.
Every product here carries an SPF claim, which in the United States makes it an over-the-counter drug. That matters for sourcing: the manufacturer must file the complete ingredient declaration with the FDA, and that filing is public. Nothing in this corpus comes from a retailer listing or a transcription site.
| Brand | Product | Tier | Parent | Ingredients | Label filed | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| e.l.f. | Flawless Finish Foundation Oil Free SPF 15 | budget | e.l.f. Beauty | 27 | 2024-12-12 | FDA filing |
| Maybelline | Fit Me Dewy + Smooth Foundation SPF 18 | mass | L'Oréal | 29 | 2026-06-16 | FDA filing |
| Rimmel London | Lasting Finish 25HR Foundation SPF 20 | mass | Coty | 50 | 2024-11-19 | FDA filing |
| Revlon | ColorStay Liquid Makeup, Oily/Combination | mass | Revlon | 27 | 2024-12-31 | FDA filing |
| L'Oréal Paris | Infallible up to 24H Fresh Wear SPF 25 | mass | L'Oréal | 34 | 2023-12-29 | FDA filing |
| L'Oréal Paris | Infallible up to 32H Fresh Wear SPF 25 | mass | L'Oréal | 35 | 2024-06-28 | FDA filing |
| MAC | Studio Fix Fluid Broad Spectrum SPF 15 | prestige | Estée Lauder Companies | 38 | 2024-12-17 | FDA filing |
| Clinique | Even Better Makeup Broad Spectrum SPF 15 | prestige | Estée Lauder Companies | 37 | 2024-01-09 | FDA filing |
| Estée Lauder | Double Wear Sheer Long-Wear Makeup SPF 19 | prestige | Estée Lauder Companies | 50 | 2024-12-25 | FDA filing |
| Lancôme | Teint Idole Ultra Wear Breathable Coverage SPF 25 | prestige | L'Oréal | 36 | 2024-06-26 | FDA filing |
| Lancôme | Teint Idole Ultra Wear Care & Glow SPF 27 | prestige | L'Oréal | 51 | 2026-05-27 | FDA filing |
| Dior | Forever Skin Wear Foundation SPF 20 (10N) | luxury | LVMH | 36 | 2026-01-16 | FDA filing |
| Estée Lauder | Futurist Hydra Rescue Moisturizing Makeup SPF 45 | prestige | Estée Lauder Companies | 73 | 2024-08-13 | FDA filing |
Selection is deliberately narrow: liquid, lotion, cream or emulsion foundations only. Powders, sticks and cushions use a different vehicle and would not be comparable. The cost of that rigour is a real bias — SPF-free foundations (Estée Lauder Double Wear, Maybelline Fit Me Matte + Poreless, Fenty Pro Filt'r) have no FDA filing and are excluded rather than sourced more weakly.
Pick any two and watch the formulas converge or diverge. Matching ingredients line up; the rest is where the products actually differ. The default pair is the one worth starting with.
These 6 ingredients appear in at least 75% of the corpus. They are the vehicle, the film former, the rheology package and the preservative — the part of a foundation that makes it a foundation at all.
| Ingredient (INCI) | Products | Share |
|---|---|---|
| water | 13 | 100% |
| dimethicone | 12 | 92% |
| phenoxyethanol | 12 | 92% |
| trimethylsiloxysilicate | 12 | 92% |
| butylene glycol | 11 | 85% |
| disteardimonium hectorite | 11 | 85% |
| peg-10 dimethicone | 9 | 69% |
| silica | 9 | 69% |
| glycerin | 8 | 62% |
| isododecane | 8 | 62% |
| sodium hyaluronate | 8 | 62% |
| tocopherol | 8 | 62% |
| aluminum hydroxide | 7 | 54% |
| bht | 7 | 54% |
| magnesium sulfate | 7 | 54% |
| parfum/fragrance | 7 | 54% |
| alcohol denat | 6 | 46% |
| laureth-7 | 6 | 46% |
| lecithin | 6 | 46% |
| sodium chloride | 6 | 46% |
| tocopheryl acetate | 6 | 46% |
| alumina | 5 | 38% |
| disodium stearoyl glutamate | 5 | 38% |
| silica silylate | 5 | 38% |
| synthetic fluorphlogopite | 5 | 38% |
| triethoxycaprylylsilane | 5 | 38% |
| alpha-isomethyl ionone | 4 | 31% |
| bis-peg/ppg-14/14 dimethicone | 4 | 31% |
| caprylyl glycol | 4 | 31% |
| cetyl peg/ppg-10/1 dimethicone | 4 | 31% |
An FDA filing is verbatim what the manufacturer submitted, typos included. Rimmel's
label alone declares Butylene Glucol, Triethoxycaprylysilance,
Hydroxyethyleclulose and Alpha-Isomethyl Lonone. Every correction this
project makes is declared in tools/build_corpus.py and recorded per-product in
the corpus, so a reader can see exactly what was changed and disagree with it. There are no
silent edits.