Laura Mercier

The tinted moisturiser category did not exist as a commercial product in 1996. One French-trained makeup artist invented it, built a brand around it, and created a new shelf that every competing house has since copied. Laura Mercier trained at the Carita School in Paris before moving to New York to work editorially with American Vogue. Her private clients wanted the look she created with a diluted foundation mixed on the back of her hand with moisturiser, a hybrid that photographed skin-like rather than painted. She launched her namesake brand through Neiman Marcus in 1996 with a product called Tinted Moisturiser as the hero. Every professional makeup artist has mixed foundation and moisturiser on the fly.