Do you also have dry skin? Then you know the challenge of finding a good powder that doesn’t look heavy, dry and cakey. That is always what I am looking for whenever I try a new powder and why I find finding a good powder such a challenge. I have a few favorites. The Kiko Milano Radiant Fusion being not only a dupe for the Hourglass Ambient Lighting powder, but also being a firm favorite in my makeup collection. But before I go back to that I wanted to test out something new. Will the Kosas Cloud Set powder be another favorite? Let’s find out in this review.
First things first: the Kosas Cloud Set Baked Setting & Smoothing powder comes in a bunch of shades. I have the lightest one which is called Airy. There are 10 in total. Five of those shades seem to be powder shades, whereas the other five are more like a powder bronzer, but those could still be used as a face powder of course if it matches you. While having 10 shades is great, I do think that for some people with very fair skin tones, Airy isn’t going to be light enough and it will be too yellow for most people with very cool undertones.
Review: Kosas Cloud Set Baked Setting & Smoothing powder Airy
The Kosas Cloud Set is a powder that is on the more expensive side. It can be purchased through Sephora in most places and retails for around €35 – €40 depending on the retailer. That is a lot for a powder especially because my favorite retails for around €15. Expensive doesn’t always have to mean it is better. And I feel that is the case for the Kosad Cloud Set. I have been using this for a month now and I can just tell this won’t be a repurchase once this is gone.
What does this powder have to offer?
The reason why I wanted to test the Kosas Cloud Set is simple: this went viral and everyone said it was a great powder for dry skin. It is supposed to be a setting powder that smoothes the skin, is lightweight, evens out texture and takes away shine without making your skin look dull. It should help lock your makeup into place withouth creasing, but without darkening or making your skin look dry. That’s a tall order and while this powder does just that, I feel this isn’t worth the price point.
What does this look like in a swatch?
If you look at this close up of the back of my hand and think: where is the powder than you’d be right. But it really is there. It is this lightweight and thin that it barely shows up. Perfect for a powder right? Wrong! This is so thin that I need quite a bit of product every time I use it to get it to work. It is undetectable once applied. Yes it doesn’t cause my skin to look dry, nor does my makeup crease. So the powder certainly works. But the biggest drawback: it develops hard pan so quickly that only after a month the product is nearly unuseable. While I can scrape that off, it also means I will be going through the product at a higher rate.
What does this powder look like on the skin?
Here you can see the before and after of my skin without powder (on the left) and with powder (on the right). I have layered it over my foundation and concealer like I normally would, but I haven’t applied my Colourpop Pretty Fresh spray yet. This way you can see the full effect. I think you can see that this powder takes away shine where it is applied, but it is barely visible. My skin looks like skin, the powder doesn’t dark my base in any way and it looks flawless. So this product scores a ++++ for performance.
What I don’t love about this product is two things: the packaging is super flimsy. It has broken on many people and the hinge is just super fragile. For this price point, I would want better backaging especially with Kosas being a ‘clean beauty’ brand which uses less effective parabens and other preservatives. So if you want to use this over time, and use it up, this may expire more easily when the packaging does break.
And there there is the hard pan. You will see it in tomorrow’s Shop My Stash but about a third, most of the dome, has already sealed over and it has been expanding as I have been using the powder around it. Again, at this price point I don’t want to have to scrape down my powder after just a few weeks of use already. After a few months, no biggy, but this quickly it just means I will be wasting a lot of product and again, at this price point I want to get my money’s worth, which I feel I am not getting.
Should you buy the Kosas Cloud Set powder?
As beautiful as this product is, I just can’t get over the details here. That is mainly due to the price point. If I can find an excellent powder that works just as well but is nearly 1/3 of the price than why would I spend this much money on a powder? Yes this is finely milled. Yes this does exactly what it is supposed to do. But for this amount of money I just want more from my powder. I don’t want you to deliver on the promises, I want your product to blow me out of the park. This didn’t do that. That doesn’t mean the product is bad, but I would save your money and get the Kiko instead.
Buy the Kosas Cloud Set powder here *.
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