I did a fun beauty investigation over the past week to find out whether hairspray, setting spray (or nothing) is better for making your make-up stay put in a variety of weather conditions!  The video’s tests are hilarious but it’s asking a real and important question about a beauty product that most of us use without thinking (or have in a drawer and forget about, if you’re like me).

Does setting spray or hairspray work better in a rainstorm?

I tested setting spray against no setting spray then got into the shower to see what they did in a rainstorm.  Oh that was hilarious!!

Next I took my make-up off, did a complete reapply and tested setting spray against hair spray in first a light rainstorm (shower on low) then a heavy one (shower on high).

I found that hairspray worked marginally better but neither of them were really designed to stand up to this sort of abuse.

Does setting spray or hairspray work better during exercise?

After the rain test I took my experiment outside to find out what was better to keep make-up in place during exercise.  I did about 30 minutes of exercise outdoors on a hot day to see which product was best at fighting make-up meltdown.

Lastly, to test for whether setting spray or hairspray was better during those really hot days for example when you’re on a long bus ride, I used my hairdryer.  Unexpectedly, the heat from the hairdryer made any perspiration evaporate but it did also show some interesting results about make up that’s been fixed with setting spray – on the side of my face where I used setting spray, I ended up with a nasty little breakout on my cheek.  On the side where I used hairspray, this did not happen (and my eye make-up looked fresher on the hairspray side).

Conclusion:  Hairspray isn’t just a cheap alternative to setting spray.  If you need your make up to last longer, hairspray is actually better.  Which leads to the question, why is Studio Fix called a setting spray not something else???

Limitations:

I did not look at whether spraying your make-up brushes with setting spray would increase the intensity of eye shadow colours.  Maybe in a future investigation…

What do you think of my little experiment?  Let me know your thoughts!