6 Luxury Setting Powders For A Smooth, Skin-Like Finish
Setting and finishing powders are an essential post-foundation makeup step that ensures your complexion will be grease-free, stay put all day. But not all of these powders are created equally. While a solid finishing powder will leave your skin feeling velvety-smooth and natural, the wrong one can leave you looking chalky and cakey.
The best formulas will are typically super finely-milled in texture, and will offer oil control without leaving the skin looking parched and textured.
Ahead, are some quick reviews of my favorite luxury finishing powders.
Dior Powder No Powder
What it is:
A perfecting translucent powder with a natural, sheer finish.
How it looks/feels like:
The powder itself feels very smooth and silky in pan. It doesn’t have a conventional pressed powdery type of texture or feel. It makes your skin look really smooth and feel petal-soft without looking cakey.
Do I love it?
It’s such a unique powder formula, and works so well on my dry leaning skin. It doesn’t cling/emphasize dry patches and works beautifully for my under eye area as well. It’s also versatile in terms of what type of foundation you use underneath, whether dewy or matte, and still gives you a soft, luminous finish. I love it.
Charlotte Tilbury Airbrush Flawless Finishing Powder
What it is:
An ultra-fine setting powder that blurs imperfections and visibly reduces shine
How it looks/feels like:
The powder has a very smooth, velvety texture. Glides over makeup with a highler level of pigment than most finishing powders that provides more coverage and skin evening effect, without losing the look of you makeup. Feels lightweight and hugs the skin. It doesn’t look talc-y or chalk-y. It helps keep your makeup in place without looking cakey, and blurs and blends everything together. Skin also feels so soft when I’m wearing it.
Do I love it?
I love it and has been my HG with multiple repurchases. It’s a great powder to use if you want to set your makeup, give your skin a soft level of radiance, maintain a skin-like finish, and illuminate your skin without any sparkle or shine.
NARS Translucent Setting Powder
What it is:
A translucent, light-diffusing powder with a soft matte, luminous finish.
How it looks/feels like:
The pressed powder looks bright white in the pan but is colorless on skin. It has a fine pearlescence that gives a soft-focus effect. The texture has the smoothness of a cream but the lightness & dryness of a powder. However there’s no powderiness in the pan and on the skin. It softens and smooths out the skin’s texture and appearance. There is a faint overall glowing sheen with no apparent shimmer particles.
Do I love it?
It took me a while to understand what this powder was doing to my skin. This is the type of finishing powder that performs even better as the day goes on and made my base last longer and look fresher with every touch up. It reduces shine, smoothens, freshens and doesn’t shift any of the makeup you have on. I like it.
Chanel Les Beiges Healthy Glow Sheer Powder
What it is:
A compact setting powder that is designed to give your complexion a sheer, healthy, glow without looking unnatural.
How it looks/feels like:
This powder feels slightly drier in the pan, but very smooth to the touch and is easy to pick up. It gives a natural finish with a sheer wash of color. A little goes a long way and a couple of swipes all over the face is enough to last upwards of 6 hours. I like to use it as a finishing powder to add a little bit more “life” to my makeup. Not so much apparent blurring or evening, but does give my skin that healthy look boost.
Do I love it?
The understated glow I get from this Les Beiges powder is wonderful! It looks like a nice evening and livening boost to my makeup.There is a small bit of sparkle, which is visible in the pan, but not at all detectable on my face- but does contribute to the very subtle glow. It’s visible enough to make a beautiful difference in my complexion, yet understated enough not to look like makeup. LOVE.
Hourglass Ambient Lighting Palette I
What it is:
Radiant, illuminating finishing powders delivering multi-dimensional, soft-focus luminosity to the skin.
How it looks/feels like:
Non-powdery, silky, smooth textures for each powder that glides and builds beautifully on the skin and over makeup. It works best as a finishing powder for me and gives me an extended wear out of my base products along with softening any harshness. It feels ultra lightweight and almost undetectable but you know something’s there that is enhancing the complexion.
The powders also smooths the skin’s appearance, minimizes pores and imperfections.
Do I love it?
These powders give the effect of bringing back life to your skin, especially if you’ve gone a little too matte or towards a more heavier makeup application side. It’s a very unique product that sits between a setting/finishing powder that gives the skin a natural luminosity that is not shiny and shimmery. I love it.
Kosas Cloud Set Powder
What it is:
A baked, super soft setting and smoothing powder that sweeps away shine, yet still leaves skin with a healthy glow.
How it looks/feels like:
Fun Fact: Cloud Set begins as a mousse and is then infused with liquid skincare actives before being baked dry. It is this that creates a very airy, buttery texture, which gives you that diffused look you get from a loose powder, but in a no-mess, easy to use compact. It feels very smooth- there’s a little bit of kickback but not annoyingly so. Glides on beautifully without shifting makeup and gives a demi-matte finish.
Do I love it?
May be my new HG. So yes, I LOVE it. It definitely lives up to its claims. It sets the makeup in a fine, undetectable layer. The finish of this product is perfect - it mattifies, but somehow manages to keep the skin's natural glow. It doesn't add any coverage, but smoothens and evens. A gorgeous, delicate baked formula inside a secure plastic compact that has a nice weighty
feel to it.
Swatches
Powder swatches are always difficult to see and compare from one another on the arm. But I would just like to include them here in case it may be helpful. I hope to update with how they wear on my face as and when I use them in my routine.
Hope you enjoyed this post and found it helpful! Thanks for stopping by and reading. See you on the next one!