Viola Davis' Best Foundations for Every Occasion and Budget

black woman in a white dress smiling — @violadavis

How to get away with a flawless base.

Viola Davis is the pinnacle of acting success. With several critically acclaimed movies to her credit and her role as the culture-shifting badass lawyer Annalise Keating, the Widows main character is a modern-day symbol of perseverance and talent. But even with her acting prowess and several accomplishments, Davis is not exempted from the beauty industry’s lack of inclusivity for women with phototypes IV, V, and, especially, VI.

In an interview with Refinery29, the EGOT winner shared her grievances with the lack of foundation shades that cater to her darker skin and her trouble mixing foundation shades to get her perfect match. “It makes you think then, OK, no one is thinking of me. It’s something that I struggled with a lot.”

Thankfully, more beauty brands are becoming inclusive, and women with darker skin tones are finding their feet in an industry that has spent years ignoring them. For Viola Davis, a few brands have done and are still doing this for her, from a drugstore $17 powder foundation that she wore to the Oscars to an artiste-founded $40 soft matte option that boasts up to 50 shades. Keep reading for Viola Davis’ best foundations for every occasion and every budget.

L'Oréal Paris Age Perfect Radiant Serum Foundation

Davis knows how to make a show, whether it's on set or the red carpet. And her show at the 2021 Oscars featured a drugstore foundation that has remained a staple amongst its users.

L'Oréal’s Age Perfect Radiant Serum Foundation is a lightweight medium-coverage foundation perfect for mature skin. The foundation, formulated with vitamin B3, also contains SPF 50, which is undoubtedly a pretty high SPF rating for a complexion product, making it the perfect everyday foundation for errands, work, and play.

loreal-gold-foundation-tube — © L'Oréal Paris

For Viola Davis, a base that looks as hydrated and skin-like as possible is her go-to, and we can see why she and her makeup artist, Autumn Moultrie, love this foundation. The foundation retails for $18 at the time of writing and is available in 30 shades.

For her Oscars look, Moultrie used shade 145 Mahogany, a rich, deep brown suitable for Davis’ radiant and mature skin.

L'Oréal Paris Age Perfect Creamy Powder Foundation

woman applying makeup to another woman — @autumnmoultriebeauty

While we prefer a good serum foundation, powder foundation can be a godsend part of your makeup routine if you know how to use it well. For Viola Davis, L'Oréal’s Age Perfect Creamy Powder foundation is good enough to be worn to the 2021 Academy Awards.

Like her SPF 50 Age Perfect Radiant Serum Foundation, Moultrie also used the Age Perfect Creamy Powder Foundation for her ethereal red carpet look. The product, which is a blurring and hydrating foundation, is formulated with ceramides that hydrate and plump the skin and antioxidants which protect and repair.

loreal brown powder foundation container — @L'Oréal Paris

Unlike most powders with tight ranges that either do not cater to darker phototypes or are of the wrongest undertones, this creamy blurring powder, which offers medium coverage and a natural finish, comes in 16 rich shades and retails at $17.

For her Oscars look, Davis had on the powder in shades 360 Sienna for highlights and 375 Espresso. If you’re in the market for a foundation that is both affordable and perfect for mature skin, take Davis’ inspo and get a compact or two.

L'Oréal Paris True Match Super-blendable Foundation

black woman in a white dress looking back and smiling — @violadavis

While Davis constantly takes risks of colour on the red carpet, her makeup mainly prioritises a solid base and a dramatic eye or lip.

For that famously solid base at the 2019 Emmy Awards, Viola Davis went to the drugstore again. She had on L’Oreal’s True Match Foundation, the 4.5-star rated medium-coverage foundation that has received over 15,000 5-star ratings on Amazon.

loreal brown foundation container — © L'Oréal Paris

The L'Oréal True Match Super-blendable Foundation is a lightweight liquid foundation that contains hyaluronic acid for hydration and SPF 17 for sun protection.

While its SPF rating is not as high as the Age Perfect Radiant Serum Foundation, the two Davis-approved favourites are both lightweight and medium coverage, highlighting her love for a breathable, skin-like finish. Unfortunately, we couldn't find information on the precise shade used in the range for her Emmy look, but we can tell it's a choice between the C10 Espresso, C11 Coffee or C12 Dark Chocolate.

At the Emmys, Davis’ makeup artist paired this foundation with the L'Oréal Paris Infallible Full Wear Concealer for highlights and a matte lipstick from the same brand in the shade 405 Doesn't Matte-R.

The True Match Foundation made another appearance at Davis’ show-stopping white Valentino look at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.

Make up Forever Matte Velvet Skin Liquid

black and cream foundation tube — © L'Oréal Paris

In another interview with Refinery29, Davis revealed yet another favourite of hers – but one on a much higher budget. “...what I find is that if you tell them the sort of makeup you like to use — for me, that's the Make Up For Ever Matte foundation, I absolutely love it — then usually if it’s a makeup artist I don’t know, then at least they have my shade…”, she told the magazine.

Make Up Forever’s Matte Velvet Skin Liquid is a full-coverage longwear foundation which retails for $40 (at the time of writing). The product has been described as “a makeup artist’s favourite” as it offers the perfect matte base without any dryness or cracking.

For Davis, makeup time on set can go left pretty quickly as many makeup artists are not trained to do makeup on deeper skin tones. For the actress, this Matte Velvet Skin Liquid is her answer to quickly identifying her shade in such situations. However, like the True Match, we can not confirm what shade she loves on set, but our best guesses lead us to the shades R540 Dark Brown and R560 Chocolate.

Fenty Beauty Pro Filt'r Soft Matte Longwear Foundation

fenty beauty foundation container — © Fenty Beauty

For Davis, Fenty Beauty’s release of 40 inclusive shades on the first launch wasn't just a hard cultural reset on the beauty industry; it was also so moving she had to get one for use in her routine. The Pro Filt’r Soft Matte Longwear Foundation, now available in a whopping 50 shades, is a medium-to-full coverage foundation that blurs and smooths the skin to perfection. For Davis, finally seeing a brand prioritize darker skin tones with an initial launch of shades that cater to her skin was a moment she had to praise.

“The thing about Fenty, which I own, is that I can get a base makeup that is exactly my skin tone…I don’t feel like I have to get something five shades lighter or mix two shades together in order to get my shade. And it feels like my natural skin. It’s full coverage, and I’m honoured by the fact that I’m recognized in this beauty line. I thank Rihanna for that,” she told Refinery29.

Unlike most of Davis’ other budget-friendly foundation choices, which include a $14 drugstore one, Rihanna’s Pro Filt’r Soft Matte Foundation will set you back $40, but its undeniably worth it. And for us, the right to never mix shades is something we’ll always spend on.

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