If you've read my blog before, you know that I love my IT Cosmetics Bye Bye Pores powder; it features heavily in my preferred foundation routine.
However, the It Cosmetics powder is $32 for a jar and it's not very much in terms of weight. It works like a dream but for $32, I felt like I needed to test out some other options.
Enter Makeup Revolution's Ghost Luxury Baking Powder. While buying some new concealer, I spotted this powder. For $9, it seemed like an absolute steal. After using it almost every day for about a month, I have some thoughts.
How I Use It
As you probably know from my foundation routine, I wear powder underneath my foundation; it's my first step after moisturizer. I use this powder first, then apply foundation, then more powder.
There are a few things I look for when it comes to using powder under my foundation: it doesn't make my foundation pill or look cakey; and it doesn't leave white patches. I found that this powder wasn't as dry as the IT Cosmetics; it reminds me more of elf's HD powder, but heavier. It didn't pill underneath my foundation.
How It Wears
As I said, this powder isn't as dry feeling as IT Cosmetic's. It doesn't have that instantaneous dry and matte feeling. It's not bad, but I was really hoping it would be a good, affordable dupe.
It did set my makeup relatively well, but it did not extend the light of my foundation at all; within a few hours, I was getting breakdown around my nose and on my forehead, my two big problem areas. Even on my "no foundation days" where I just wear concealer, it ended up making my concealer look very cakey and it broke down a lot faster than usual.
As well, I noticed that if I wasn't careful, it made me look so cakey! As well, if you don't brush it right away, it leaves large white patches. It is supposed to be a baking powder, which means you do leave it on for a while. However, if I brushed right away, I didn't get white patches.
It's not the worst powder I've ever used, but it doesn't perform the way I would expect a baking powder to.
Final Thoughts
Would I repurchase this powder? Absolutely not. For the same price, there are powders that don't advertise themselves as baking powders that do the exact same thing and don't look as bad. In fact, I own some of them!
I'm still on the hunt for a good dupe for the IT Cosmetics powder. Until then, I guess I'm dropping $32 on an ounce of powder!
