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The Pro Filt’r Fluid Flex Natural Matte Longwear Foundation launches globally on 4 September 2026, and Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty is retiring the original Pro Filt’r formula in its place. The original product launched the brand and set a new standard for shade inclusivity.
The new foundation and its companion, the Pro Filt’r Fluid Flex Foundation Brush, are priced at $48 and will launch in 50 shades. Rihanna is taking back the original shade range and starting from scratch, refining undertones and adding more neutrals through testing conducted around the world. The brush retails for $36 and features a dense, wavy bristle design with a soft-scoop shape.
Fenty Beauty has declined to comment on sales projections, though industry sources are forecasting $70 million in retail sales for the new foundation in its first year.
Erin O’Neill, chief brand officer at Fenty Beauty, said the team created 80 shades to start, then narrowed that pool through live shade matching on real people across five shade-matching events held around the world. And they finally landed on the final range of 50.
Roshini Greenwald, Fenty Beauty’s North America general manager, described shade development at the brand as an ongoing, never-ending process, signalling that further shade additions could follow after launch.
According to the brand, the product development team rebuilt the foundation from the ground up over three years. They are targeting the oxidation and transfer complaints that had followed the original formula. The finished product promises 12-hour wear and an expanded set of neutral undertones within the 50-shade range at launch. It has resistance to oxidising toward a warm tone and what the brand calls a modern matte finish designed to control oil while softening drier areas of the skin.
Rihanna put the formula through an extended personal trial before signing off on it. She tested it across her daily life, red carpet appearances, and this year’s Met Gala. She said, “I’ve been wearing Fluid Flex foundation for more than a year.” She added that the response to the original Pro Filt’r shade range had been remarkable and that the brand’s community continues to shape what it builds next.
The foundation is made in Japan and formulated with a breathable polymer blend, colour-true longwear pigments and starfruit extract, engineered to feel lightweight while building coverage and controlling shine throughout the day. Fenty Beauty describes the coverage as buildable and medium, landing in the same territory that made the original Pro Filt’r line a category staple.
A group of beauty editors was invited to preview and try the new formula in New York, with coverage noting the brand’s stated goal of addressing oxidation and transfer issues while widening shade matching through more neutral undertones.
The original Pro Filt’r Soft Matte Longwear Foundation, still listed on Fenty Beauty’s site, built its reputation on Climate Adaptive Technology, a system that flexes with skin in different environments to absorb oil, reduce shine, and hold a matte finish while resisting sweat and humidity. All 59 shades of that formula are listed as vegan, and the brand markets the line as 100% cruelty-free, with a standard fill weight of 32 mL and a 12 mL mini size also available.
That formula traces back to the original Pro Filt’r Foundation that launched Fenty Beauty in 2017 in 40 shades, a range that pushed the wider beauty industry toward offering deeper and more varied shade options for melanin-rich skin tones. The shade count later expanded to 50 as the brand refined its undertone matching; the same 50-shade structure now carried into the Fluid Flex formula that succeeds it.
Fenty Beauty directs shoppers to its virtual shade finder, an AI-powered tool that compares a customer’s skin tone against the brand’s shade database using photo recognition. The brand advises starting with undertone, whether cool, warm, or neutral, before narrowing to a shade family spanning light to deep. Priscilla Ono, Fenty Beauty’s global makeup artist, has told Cult Beauty that shoppers should match their shade against the jawline in natural light instead of testing on the back of the hand, since hand and face tones frequently differ.
The shade-matching infrastructure sits alongside a broader Pro Filt’r portfolio that already includes a Hydrating Longwear Foundation, a tube-based formula built for drier skin types that launched in the same 50-shade range as the original soft matte version. The Fluid Flex launch adds a third finish option to that portfolio without discontinuing the hydrating variant.
The Pro Filt’r Fluid Flex Natural Matte Longwear Foundation and its companion brush launch globally on 4 September 2026, at fentybeauty.com, Sephora, and Ulta Beauty.
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