Milani Conceal + Perfect Blur Out Powder is an airy, mattifying, loose powder that helps to diffuse the look of skin texture and control oil. It retails for around $13 and is available to purchase from Milani and Ulta.
There are 5g of product in the pot. Most of my other loose (and pressed) powders contain around 10g. Just by looking at the sizes of the powder compacts and containers I have, this one isn’t that much smaller, so I wonder if the weight difference might be due to the ingredients.
INGREDIENTS: Silica, Polymethyl Methacrylate, Polymethylsilsesquioxane, HDI/Trimethylol Hexyllactone Crosspolymer, Dehydroacetic Acid, Ethylhexylglycerin, Tocopherol, Maltodextrin, Carmine (CI 75470), Iron Oxides (CI 77491, CI 77492, CI 77499). - From Milani's Website
I am by no means an expert in cosmetic ingredients but I do like to scan over them and do some light research to see what they are. There are some that I see time and time again (like silica) and they don’t really faze me but the second one listed is new to me. If you punch Polymethyl Methacrylate into Google, you will quickly find that it is a type of plastic (acrylic). It’s supposed to be “safe” and compatible with human skin.
The powder is VERY fine and flies up in the air as I go to pick some up out of the container. I am glad they included the fabric netting to control how much comes out of the pot. This netting is stretchy and flexible so I can press a brush or puff down into the pot to reach powder that is sitting well below it. I tend to remove sifters from loose powders but I don’t think I will be doing that with this one.
Applying this to the skin, it has a super silky, and almost kind of dry, but still very smooth feel. It creates a surface with very little friction or tack. Using this to set under eye concealer helps any eyeshadow fallout to not stick to the skin as much as it otherwise might. It darkens my concealer the tiniest bit but not enough to be a problem. I’ve had other powders that darken much more.
The main benefit of this product is that it’s supposed to blur. So how well does it do that compared to other products? I think it blurs marginally better than most of my other powders. My favorite one was the Too Faced Peach Perfect Setting Powder (now discontinued). I went into this purchase thinking the Milani powder might be a decent substitute that is actually currently available.
So far, I am happy with the smoothing effect and pleasantly surprised at the added bonus of controlling oil as well. I will say that blurring is really best done using a combination of products and not just relying on one magic pill.
There are couple of potential downsides, though. Be careful not to apply too much. You may not even see any excess powder in real life but it can definitely show up as flashback in photos. The last “after” pic below is an example of this. If you end up over applying, just buff over the area to tone it down.
Another issues is that there is only one shade and that may be a problem for those with deeper complexions, if it shows up as much as it does on me. It is supposed to be translucent and it mostly is if applied lightly but it doesn’t take much to overdo it.
As a product, I like how this powder performs. It looks good, it lasts. But I find the idea of putting powdered plastic on my skin (and then washing it down the drain) kind of disturbing. I realize plastic is everywhere and something like this is such a small percentage of it. It’s just that makeup is in no way a necessity and I don’t see why overlooking that is okay in this situation. In hindsight, I wouldn’t purchase this again for that one reason alone.