I’ve been rather tardy in getting around to reviewing this foundation from Giorgio Armani. In fact, it has probably been reviewed to death all over the internet by now and you’re sick of hearing about it – if that’s the case then I do apologise. I’m late to the party, but I like to think…fashionably late. And also, late for a reason, because I do like to give things quite a thorough testing before I put pen to paper about it, especially if it’s something with a new or unusual formula. And Giorgio Armani’s Maestro makeup is certainly new and unusual; no water in the formula, but five different oils that evaporate, leaving the fine pigment veiled over the skin. It’s so fluid that you need to dispense it drop-by-drop from a teat pipette and quickly smooth it over the skin. If you usually depend on your foundation to give you that final layer of creamy, moisturising product, then you’ll no doubt find the texture of the Maestro incredibly strange.

It’s pretty amazing, though, how this “fusion makeup” manages to achieve such good coverage with a beautifully natural finish. This is truly invisible makeup that is hardly detectable at all, even when I zoom right in with my camera. Here’s a before and after picture – top is the before photo, but I hope you’ll be able to tell that. Bottom is the after, with Maestro applied with fingertips.

You can still see a few marks and patches coming through, so it’s not the most comprehensive of coverages, but it does pretty bloody well. The makeup is also buildable, and I only used one very, very thin layer here. It would be easy to create a heavier coverage in places that needed it. The staying-power was incredible, too – my face looked almost exactly the same after about twelve hours. No slippage, no patchiness and I didn’t need to powder or reapply. The Maestro works very well on my combination skin – the finish is quite matte, though not at all powdery or cakey looking. I’d be interested to know how it fares on very dry skin – please do leave a comment below if you have any feedback at all.

My verdict? Excellent. I love it when brands really develop something genuinely good, something that’s not just jumping on a bandwagon or re-inventing the wheel. Something that adds value (in this case, it’s that the makeup is light as a feather yet still gives a perfect veil of colour) and raises the beauty bar for all of the other brands. Maestro Fusion Makeup isn’t my all-time favourite foundation, but it’s definitely up there with the very best. The more I use it, the more I love it – I just find it hard to get my head around the featherlight, almost surreal, texture. It just glides on and then…works! You can’t feel it, you can’t see it, but it’s there, perfecting away.

Maestro Fusion Makeup costs £38 but you need to use far less of it than you would of a regular foundation. I can’t tell you how long a bottle would last as I’ve barely made a dent in mine! You can find it at Selfridges.com – probably best to test it on counter to match your shade.