What it is: Make Up For Ever HD Skin Setting Powder is a loose powder that is supposed to be blurring, mattifying, lightweight and undetectable, and it is boldly claimed to fight shine for 24 hours. 

Price/Quantity: $43 for 18 grams / $22 for 7 grams

Availability: Make Up For Ever, Sephora, Kohl’s

Shade Range: 12 Shades. 8 of them are complexion shades, and 4 are color correcting shades.

Packaging: I’m not sure what the mini size packaging is like but this larger one has a sifter that can be closed by twisting the black portion of the jar. The puff fits perfectly over the sifter so, if you hold the puff over the holes as you turn the jar over, a bit of powder will then coat the surface of the puff. I like this concept for keeping mess down and it does sort of work. It only really keeps mess down if you apply the powder using the puff this way but I personally prefer using a brush, so I still turn the jar over with the lid on to get some powder up above the sifter. That way I’m able to pick some up on a brush. In general, I find the packaging is pretty clean to use either way. So far, I haven’t had issues with powder “leaking” out.

Smell/Fragrance: Smells like absolutely nothing to me.

Expiration/Shelf Life: 12 months after opening. 

Ingredients: Mica, Kaolin, Silica, Zea Mays (Corn) Starch, Lauroyl Lysine, Caprylyl Glycol, Pentylene Glycol, Dicaprylyl Carbonate, Squalane, Ethylhexylglycerin, Sodium Dehydroacetate, Tocopheryl Acetate, Tocopherol, [+/- Ci 77491, Ci 77492, Ci 77499 (Iron Oxides)]. Source: Sephora.com

Performance

Shade Selection: This powder ends up coating the face in a way where the color is hardly noticeable. It’s nice to see a wide range of colors here, especially the color correcting ones. I’m just not sure the difference in color/tone will end up being all that noticeable unless a shade that is wildly different from someone’s skin tone is used. I bought mine from Sephora and went with the shade Light Vanilla. It was described as having golden undertones which made me a little hesitant, but with actual use, I really don’t notice any golden/yellow tone whatsoever. It ends up looking mostly like a pale neutral translucent shade on me.

Application: I prefer dusting this on lightly with a brush. Doing it this way gives me a much thinner application but still very noticeably mattifies. Even for the under eye and cheek area, this lighter application is plenty to remove any tackiness from my foundation to keep any sparkle fallout from eyeshadow from sticking to my skin, but it doesn’t look heavy. 

The puff can also be used for a heavier application that will help fight shine for a little longer than the brush method. I don’t really enjoy doing it this way because I feel it ends up looking much heavier and looks more like I’ve got an obvious layer of powder sitting on the surface of the skin. Even if I dust off excess, I still think it looks a bit too heavy. 

One thing I’ve tried doing for the sake of keeping shine away longer is using a brush to first apply a very light layer and then pressing over it with the puff (without any extra powder on it) to really sink the powder into the foundation. This kind of works and looks better.

Texture/Consistency/Finish: The powder does feel pretty fine once it’s all spread out on the skin. It may not look like it in the container, though, because it does kind of like to stick together in small clumps. It doesn’t feel like a silica powder — you know those ultra silky ones that flow almost like a liquid, and fly up into the air at the touch of a brush. It feels more like a traditional powder. Weightier, but still fine. It has a few skin conditioning ingredients a bit lower down in the ingredients list but I don’t find this to be like a “hydrating” powder. It feels like it’s more on the dry side.

Pigmentation/Color Payoff: Very sheer. I think if someone were to buy a shade that was a bit off, it probably wouldn’t be noticeable.

Longevity: This was the thing I really wanted to know about this powder. Does it actually last? For me, this falls a bit flat in terms of keeping shine away for long periods of time. I can go about half a day before I see shine coming through. I’ve tried this all week with different foundations and most days, I felt the need to reapply once midafternoon to get my skin back to a place I felt comfortable with. It certainly works better than some more “hydrating” powders I’ve used for controlling oil. Above I’ve shown this next the discontinued Too Faced Peach Perfect Powder, which I love for how smoothing it is, but it does nothing for shine control.

Pros and Cons

Things I like:

• Fine, lightweight texture. Lives up to the “undetectable” claim pretty well.
• Controls shine and oil fairly well but nowhere near what it claims.
• There’s a TON of product in here. It will last for quite some time.
• I appreciate the thought that went into the packaging design. Even if you don’t apply the product with the puff, it is nice that they included it and that mess is generally not a big problem regardless of how it’s applied.
• I can reapply this many times (so far I’ve tried about 3 times), without it building up to a point where my foundation starts to look cakey. This is actually a huge plus that sets it apart from lots of other powders I’ve tried.

Drawbacks and other considerations:

• It can look heavy if applied with the puff. I feel like this is very dependent on other factors though (what foundation you pair it with, how your skin is doing, etc.)
• The large size is really expensive for what it is. I have other powders I paid a lot less for that effectively do about the same thing.

Do I Recommend It?

This is another one of those products, where, yes, it’s a good product. It mostly does what it says, aside from the 24 hour claim (such things really should never be taken seriously). But I feel like it’s not really worth the price unless you really want the brand name, the logo, and the better packaging design. I don’t feel the powder itself is significantly better than lower cost options.

I have been wearing Make Up For Ever HD Foundation for several months. I first bought it in the shade 117 which worked out fine but it does have a yellow undertone to it. Recently I purchased shade 115 which has a pink undertone to it and matched my natural skintone much better. It’s not really “lighter” – it’s just pinker.

It is a little runny but not so much that it is bothersome. I like to use a Sigma Round Kabuki brush to apply and blend out the foundation. It does not settle into pores or fine lines and in fact helps to camouflage them. I have found that if I try to wear a primer underneath this foundation it then gives me problems with settling into pores so I wear it by itself most of the time. Very little of it sticks to the little peach fuzz on my face which makes it look much more natural. It has medium coverage and does a really nice job of evening out the complexion, hiding redness, and reducing the obviousness of minor blemishes and freckles but it does not completely cover them. This foundation is not oily or heavy and seems to “set” on it’s own without a powder allowing me to use powder blushes over it. Using a setting powder over it does help it last longer though, giving me 8+ hours of comfortable wear.

The pump works really well and gives you good control over how much foundation you want to dispense. I haven’t had any issues with it getting stuck or jamming. The lid on my 117 bottle that I’ve had for a while just broke today (see it in the pictures below). I’m not sure what happened because I haven’t dropped or anything. It has been giving me issues for a while not staying on the bottle well. If I picked it up by the lid, the bottle would just fall right out. It has probably been cracked for a while and I just didn’t notice it. The lid on my new 115 bottle is fine though – stays on, not cracked. It retails for about $42 and contains 1.01 Fl Oz / 30 ml.