Beauty Blog: Defining face powders

Welcome back to another round of beauty dictionary. I am continuing this series from last semester.

In this post, I’ll be talking about powders. I’ll be talking about two kinds of powder, pressed and loose.

Pressed:

Like liquid foundation, this is the kind of powder most people are familiar with, because it has been around for so long and is one of the first introduction into the world of makeup.

Most pressed powders are matte and tend to give off some kind of coverage. A good example of this would be the L’Oreal True Match Powder.

You can use such powders to:

Set your foundation
Use it on its own as a powder foundation
Add on more coverage to your existing foundation to get a full coverage look

Another reason to have a pressed powder laying around is that it can help tone down your blush. If you accidentally added way too much blush then, a powder in your skin tone will help bring it back down a notch or two.

Pressed powders are also used to combat any shine. Typically these powders are translucent in order to cater to a wider variety of skin tones. Rimmel London makes one called Stay Matte which has developed quite the following. It’s great for setting your undereye concealer and just staying matte throughout the day.

Loose:

These kind of powders come in a container of some sort and comes with sifter (little holes on top of the plastic). These are typically used to:

Set the foundation/concealer
Take away any shine

They do not provide coverage like a pressed powder does. Many are in a translucent shade as well.

However if you’re a woman of color and find translucent to be too ashy and not suit you, then I have a solution.

I use the Ben NYE Translucent Powder in Topaz. This is a yellow beige powder that helps to correct any foundation and doesn’t leave me looking as if I didn’t moisturize my face.

Another reason to pick up Ben Nye product is because Kim Kardashian is known to use the Ben NYE Banana Powder (also a loose powder) under her eyes to give that highlighted look. The Banana Powder is great for medium-dark skin tones because it complements well and gives a great under eye highlight.

Somayea is a junior at UT and an aspiring beauty blogger.

Edited by Jessica Carr