The Good, The Bad and The Eh: Loose Powders

 **These pictures are from Sephora's, Walmart, and Beautylish websites.**

For the next part of The Good, The Bad and The Eh, we're doing Loose Powders. Loose powder is obviously not travel friendly but it also has more uses than just setting the face. You can tidy up a messy dramatic and winged eye with some loose powder. You can use it under the eye to catch fall out from shadows and then just sweep it away. You can "bake" with it which essentially just makes your makeup stay through a hail storm. A lot of people bake to clean up contour and some bake under the eyes as a highlighting technique. I do not bake under the eyes because it really accentuates fine lines in my opinion. I actually don't bake much at all. I do however like loose powder to set the under eye area, especially certain kinds which I will explain. I also like setting the face with loose powder for a heavier makeup application. If I had to choose I would pick pressed powder over loose powder most every day but I've found some really good ones that make a difference. 

So starting with the Good:

My go to powder for a few years for every purpose for a powder possible is the RCMA No Color Powder. This is inexpensive. I think you get like 3 oz of products for around $10-$12. I get mine from Frends Beauty, it's also available at Beautylish. This is ideal for baking. It's great to set the under eye as well. It's just all around great. It's not overly matte finish in my opinion, it's more natural finish. Which I like because it doesn't take away from the overall look and finish of your makeup.

A great powder that I've really like recently is the new Becca Soft Light Blurring Powder. Now this is a tricky powder. I only use it on the perimeters of the face because this is super luminous and it's a peach tinted powder. It mimics "golden hour lighting" which is the ideal lighting around sunset and sunrise that makes beautiful pictures. I didn't like this at first because I used it all over and on my nose it was super noticeable with a sheen and I hated it. I was totally going to return it. I decided to give it another try and this time avoid the areas where I didn't like it. So I used it on the cheek bones up the temple around the forehead and a light dusting down the sides of jaw. I really loved it like that. It totally did blur and my skin looked like a living filter. My favorite combination is this powder with the Smashbox Radiance primer which is "golden hour" lighting as well. Some of you will not like this. It will be a total fail. Some of you will love it. I do not think there is an in between. This is $38 for .35 oz of product. Which is expensive when you think about it. 

I've found my favorite loose powder for under the eyes specifically through this little quest of powders. It's the Cover FX Perfect Setting Powder the Illuminating finish. I don't find it overly illuminating I just find that it sets the concealer beautifully and blurs any lines as best as it can. Let me also add, just for kicks, there is no powder out there that is going to photoshop your face. It's not possible to completely transform your skin's physical appearance with the application of powder. So while there are great products that help us, we have to keep our goals realistic in the process. Moving on, it comes in a light shade which is a sheer translucent and then a medium shade with a warmer undertone and it's just lovely. It comes in an original finish, a matte finish and then this finish. It's $35 for.35 oz or $10 for .14 oz

Last for the Good ones is the Coty Airspun Translucent powder. This is very inexpensive, less than $10, I got mine off Amazon but it's also in my Walgreens and Walmart has it for $5.97. I paid right at $10 for mine. You get a very nice amount of product. This has a very subtle peachy pink color, it also has a strong fragrance as well. Which is odd if you ask me. I feel like this is great for light baking. Where you aren't really packing on a ton of opaque powder, your just doing a more sheer to light application which is going to look better anyway. This also sets the under eye really well, as well as the rest of the face no matter if you use a brush or a sponge.  You get 2.3 oz for around $10 like I said and that is a nice amount of product especially if you like to bake. I don't recommend baking with super expensive powders. It's just wasteful when there are other options out there for less and for more product.

Now  lets move onto the Eh powders:

First up the Kat Von D Lock It loose powder. I swear I don't try to bash her stuff. I have plenty of products that I love from her. I think I should just give up on the entire Lock It line though. This isn't bad by no means. It does a good job of setting the face. I don't really like it under the eyes all that much and basically there are just some things I prefer over it. It does come in a travel size which I do really like and that is what I bought so I could just give it a try. Side note: There are other loose powders in the line that are for brightening and what not. This specific one I'm talking about is the Translucent.

Next is the No 7 Translucent Powder. This is good but it's not great. It's kinda expensive and still considered "drugstore" makeup which I think it crazy because it is not drugstore prices.  You get a decent amount of product but I think it's just mainly good for setting the face with a large brush. Not great for baking, and not impressed by the way my under eye area looks when I have it on. 

On to the bad....

I'm just gonna go ahead and piss all of you off in one go. I don't mean to but here it is: I don't like the Laura Mercier Translucent setting powder OR the Brightening Powder that is for under the eyes. They both do not work in my opinion. The Brightening Powder emphasizes lines and imperfections under my eyes and the Laura Mercier just doesn't do much at all for my face. I don't like it for baking because I feel like the RCMA is the best for that and even the Coty Airspun is better in my opinion. I just don't like it and yes it will set the face, most loose powders do, but there are others that are way cheaper and work way better. So I'm sorry. I hope you can forgive me and we can still be friends. 

Both of these pictures are using the Becca Soft Glow Blurring Powder around the perimeter of the face. The one on the left is using the Coty Air Spun to set the under eye area which did really well.  The one on the right is after 8 or more hours of wear and my skin still looked super smooth and hadn't creased at all. I'm pretty sure the under eye was set with Algenist Color Correcting Finishing Powder I believe. It was also around 9 pm when I took that picture with a ring light situation on my phone, versus the left side which was taken in natural light early in the day. 

The one on the bottom is using Coty Airspun on the entire face and the Cover FX to set the under eye. Taken in natural light, about mid day. (Please excuse my brows, they didn't want to act right that day.)