People on TikTok Are Using Lube as Base Makeup

The world of beauty hacks on TikTok is a very slippery slope — literally. In a string of recent viral videos, some users on the app are giving their foundation extra glide by mixing it with… lube. As in sexual lubricant. As in bow chicka wow wow. 

A version of this, er, trick has been used by @lukeketuhok in many prior makeup videos, but it really took off October 11, when Sean Anthony (@seananthonyv) posted a video of the hack, which has since earned more than 1.5 million views and 100,000 likes.

"You have to start mixing lube with your foundation," an automated voice urges as Anthony mixes foundation and Durex lubricant together on a palette. "It makes it glide extra smooth… makes your base flawless and fresh." The results, admittedly, do look amazing; Anthony's skin appears radiant after finishing his makeup routine. That's why no one should be shocked that other people raced to try lube makeup for themselves. 

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Searches for "lube makeup" or "lube primer" on the app will grant you dozens of videos of other people squeezing lube onto their faces (now there's a sentence we didn't think we'd ever see in Allure). Much as people seem to love the results that mixing lubricant into makeup can wield, not even Durex — the brand that makes the lube formula most people have used in their videos — can get behind it. 

"We appreciate the creativity here (and your makeup looks great) but we don't recommend using our lubricants on the face as makeup primers," the verified Durex TikTok account wrote in a comment on Anthony's video. 

There's a reason lubricants are only meant to be used for… you know. "Unless the lube you are using is Vaseline, don't mix your sex and makeup accessories," says Mona Gohara, M.D., a board-certified dermatologist in Connecticut. "Popular lube ingredients such as nonoxynol-9, propylene glycol, and fragrance will, sure enough, slide your face right into acne, redness, or full-blown irritation." Cosmetic chemist Ginger King also notes that propylene glycol, "an anti-freeze, can have irritation potential," and that the common lube ingredient glycerin can cause stickiness (which isn't the end of the world, just very annoying). 

You can achieve somewhat similar results by swapping out the sexual lubricant in this hack with a skin-care serum, which is what King recommends doing. "It seems like the intention [of using lube] is just to get viral on social media," she concludes. 

If you're considering using this TikTok hack as an everyday practice, you might want to reconsider. But, hey, if going viral is your goal, we won't stop you — just be careful not to leave that lube on your skin for very long. 

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