It’s hard to find the best translucent powders on the market that aren’t drying or cakey-looking but still lock in makeup for all-day wear. I’m pretty sure you recognize this struggle, right?
I have the best news for you because after reading this post you’ll know exactly…
Ready to find your new favorite translucent powder? Let’s go!
Top Picks
What’s worse than doing your makeup perfectly, wanting to set it so it lasts all day, and applying a translucent setting powder that ruins the complete look? Yeah, no we don’t want that… That’s why I’ve summed up the 22 best translucent powders, including their finish and for what skin type it’s best suited. On top of that, I’m also sharing what I like and dislike about each powder so quickly dive into the post!
22 Best Translucent Powders
Laura Mercier Translucent Loose Setting Powder
- Price: $24 – $40
- Best Suited For: Oily, Combo, Normal Skin
- Finish: Matte
- What Is It: A sheer, silky, best-selling powder that sets your makeup and feels refined on your skin. It applies evenly and blends effortlessly, leaving behind a modern matte finish with a touch of sheer coverage. The translucent shade works on virtually all skin types.
What I Like
What I Dislike
Laura Mercier Translucent Loose Setting Powder Glow
- Price: $39
- Best Suited For: Oily, Combo, Normal Skin
- Finish: Radiant
- What Is It: Laura Mercier’s beloved Translucent Loose Setting Powder is now available in a formula infused with pearl pigments so you can lock in your look for 12-hour wear with a healthy glow finish.
What I Like
What I Dislike
Urban Decay All Nighter Waterproof Setting Powder
- Price: $35
- Best Suited For: Normal, Dry, Combination, and Oily
- Finish: Matte
- What Is It: Translucent and weightless, this setting powder blurs pores and imperfections, blocks shine without dulling your natural glow, and extends the life of foundation so there’s no need to reapply, even in hot climates. Cry, sweat, get wet—this powder helps your makeup stay waterproof and flawless for up to 11 hours.
What I Like
What I Dislike
NARS Light Reflecting Loose Setting Powder
- Price: $39
- Best Suited For: Normal, Dry, Combination, and Oily
- Finish: Radiant
- What Is It: Lightweight and easy to blend, this iconic formula is powered by NARS’ Light Reflecting Complex to create a soft-focus effect by optically fading the appearance of fine lines, wrinkles, and pores. Photochromic technology diffuses and adjusts to new sources of light, so skin looks perfect in person and on camera.
What I Like
What I Dislike
Kylie Cosmetics Setting Powders
- Price: $24
- Best Suited For: Normal, Dry, Combination, and Oily
- Finish: Matte
- What Is It: The Setting Powder locks in makeup, mattifies, and minimizes excess shine all in one silky skin-breathable formula. Available in 6 natural shades this loose weightless powder was designed for all skin tones and is a must-have for keeping your makeup looking good all day long. Leaves skin with a nice matte finish without feeling dry.
What I Like
What I Dislike
Huda Beauty Easy Bake Loose Baking & Setting Powder
- Price: $35
- Best Suited For: Normal, Dry, Combination, and Oily
- Finish: Radiant
- What Is It: An easy-to-use loose powder, perfectly curated for all skin tones to create an airbrushed, long-lasting complexion, blur the appearance of pores and fine lines, and hold makeup in place all day long. This extremely light and silky texture blends seamlessly into the skin, leaving it matte with a hint of sheen for a luminous finish that controls shine throughout the day.
What I Like
What I Dislike
Kosas Cloud Set Baked Setting & Smoothing Powder
- Price: $34
- Best Suited For: Oily, Combo, Normal Skin
- Finish: Natural Finish
- What Is It: A super soft, sheer setting and smoothing powder baked with skincare that sweeps away shine (not glow), feels like nothing, but looks like everything. Its unique airy texture gives your skin the most smooth, blurred, healthy look ever. Get the diffused, natural finish of a loose powder in a no-mess pressed powder.
What I Like
What I Dislike
Make Up For Ever Ultra HD Loose Powder
- Price: $37
- Best Suited For: Oily, Combo, Normal Skin
- Finish: Matte
- What Is It: Available in six versatile shades, the setting powder gives you lightweight coverage without flashback. This product provides a waterproof, sweatproof, and smudge-proof barrier to keep makeup fresh all day and includes an ultra-soft pointed-tip puff for precise application.
What I Like
What I Dislike
Dior Backstage Powder No Powder Face And Body Setting Powder
- Price: $40
- Best Suited For: Normal, Dry, Combination, and Oily
- Finish: Matte
- What Is It: Dior Backstage Face & Body Powder-No-Powder blurs imperfections, reduces shine, and visibly evens out the complexion for a luminous matte finish. Completely foolproof, this compact powder infused in a gel base applies seamlessly on the skin for a natural, non-powdery effect, even after multiple touch-ups.
What I Like
What I Dislike
Glossier Wowder
- Price: $22
- Best Suited For: Dry and Normal Skin
- Finish: Natural to Matte
- What Is It: A finishing powder that cuts shine, blurs the appearance of pores, and sets makeup Control your level of dewiness with this instant blotting powder. Won’t leave a chalky film, cake into fine lines, flatten skin’s texture or show up in flash photos
What I Like
What I Dislike
LYS Beauty Triple Fix Setting Powder
- Price: $18
- Best Suited For: Oily, Combo Skin
- Finish: Matte
- What Is It: This clean, talc-free, finely milled pressed setting powder buffs beautifully into the skin as it blurs and locks makeup in place for all-day perfection and no white cast. Infused with niacinamide, green tea extract, and sodium hyaluronate, this weightless powder won’t accentuate texture or pores.
What I Like
What I Dislike
bareMinerals Mineral Veil Talc Free Setting Powder
- Price: $30
- Best Suited For: Normal, Dry, Combination, and Oily
- Finish: Matte or Radiant (there’s a matte and radiant version available, I prefer the matte)
- What Is It: All the soft translucence of the original Mineral Veil finishing powder with a touch of warm tint. The finishing powder infuses your skin with softness and light while gently absorbing oil and minimizing the appearance of lines and pores. It goes on completely sheer and is versatile enough for all skin tones.
What I Like
What I Dislike
Charlotte Tilbury Airbrush Flawless Finish
- Price: $45
- Best Suited For: Normal, Dry, Combination, and Oily
- Finish: Matte
- What Is It: This breathable, micro-fine powder technology gives you an immaculate complexion that acts like a luxe, micro-fine cashmere veil on top of your skin for a bright, perfecting finish. This product doesn’t cake or sit in lines. Rose wax and almond oil hydrate the skin throughout the day and enable the powder to blend on flawlessly, while reducing shine.
What I Like
What I Dislike
Saie Airest Radiant Loose Setting Powder
- Price: $30
- Best Suited For: Oily, Combo, Normal Skin
- Finish: Radiant
- What Is It: The Setting Powder is packed with clean ingredients like squalane to lock in hydration and give skin a plump, moisturized appearance plus low-level mica for effortless luminosity. Saie’s formula has a weightless, velvet-cream texture that blends in seamlessly and leaves a radiant glow without looking heavy.
What I Like
What I Dislike
IT Cosmetics Bye Bye Pores Translucent Pressed Setting Powder
- Price: $30
- Best Suited For: Normal, Dry, Combination, and Oily
- Finish: Matte
- What Is It: Developed by plastic surgeons, this setting powder is infused with silk, collagen, antioxidants, and peptides to ensure it won’t settle into wrinkles while delivering an airbrushed look. Keep this translucent setting powder in your makeup bag for mattifying touch-ups.
What I Like
What I Dislike
Fenty Beauty Pro Filt’r Instant Retouch Setting Powder
- Price: $34
- Best Suited For: Normal, Dry, Combination, and Oily
- Finish: Matte
- What Is It: This silky loose powder works all day to reduce shine and blur the look of pores, fine lines, and imperfections for a hyper-smooth filter that won’t flashback. Eight versatile shades melt into your unique skin tone, letting you set, perfect, and brighten without caking or settling.
What I Like
What I Dislike
Givenchy Prisme Libre Finishing & Setting Powder
- Price: $58
- Best Suited For: Normal, Dry, Combination, and Oily
- Finish: Radiant
- What Is It: An ultra finely milled setting powder that resists caking and is designed to mattify, blur, & illuminate the complexion for a perfected makeup result. Each loose setting powder shade combines four unique colors—two for correction and two for radiance.
What I Like
What I Dislike
e.l.f High Definition Powder HD Loose Setting Powder
- Price: $6
- Best Suited For: Normal, Dry, Combination, and Oily
- Finish: Natural to Radiant
- What Is It: This setting powder ensures you’re always insta-ready by subtly blurring fine lines, pores, and blemishes for a radiant complexion. The loose, light-as-air formula delivers translucent coverage that blends effortlessly onto your skin, giving you a smooth soft-focus finish that won’t cake or crease.
What I Like
What I Dislike
Hourglass Veil Translucent Setting Powder
- Price: $46
- Best Suited For: Normal, Dry, Combination, and Oily
- Finish: Normal
- What Is It: Bless the skin with a naturally flawless finish with Hourglass Veil Translucent Setting Powder, an ultra-refined loose powder that settles onto the skin to disguise imperfections and ensure that foundation and concealer are set to perfection.
What I Like
What I Dislike
Anastasia Beverly Hills Loose Setting Powder
- Price: $38
- Best Suited For: Oily Skin
- Finish: Matte
- What Is It: Perfect, brighten, and set makeup in place with the ABH Loose Setting Powder. Available in four natural-toned shades and one universal translucent shade, this silky formula gives the complexion a seamless, soft-focus effect while blurring the look of imperfections and extending the wear of your makeup.
What I Like
What I Dislike
Pat McGrath Sublime Perfection Setting Powder
- Price: $39
- Best Suited For: Normal, Dry, Combination, and Oily
- Finish: Matte
- What Is It: his ultra-weightless, buildable, loose setting powder delivers major soft-focus effects. A sheer veil of coverage ensures skin looks naturally refined with a divine finish. With a silky, luxe, velvety feel, it blurs the look of imperfections for long-lasting makeup that stays flawlessly in place.
What I Like
What I Dislike
ILIA Soft Focus Finishing Powder
- Price: $34
- Best Suited For: Oily, Combination, and Normal Skin
- Finish: Natural to Matte
- What Is It: This superlight, talc-free formula is milled five times—most powders are milled three—for an airy feel and a soft-focus finish that doesn’t feel powdery. With a blend of aloe, rosemary, and oil-balancing bamboo, it hydrates and softens the feel of skin while cutting shine and blurring imperfections.
What I Like
What I Dislike
What Is Translucent Powder Used For
Translucent powder is a powder product that can be used to set your makeup. It often contains silica, which helps smooth out the skin and make it look more youthful. This type of powder is used to set makeup that’s already on your face, such as foundation and concealer. It also works well when you want to remove the shine on areas like your T-zone (forehead, nose, and chin).
Translucent powders come in different colors and formulations to fit different skin tones and skin types. The most common ones are white/off-white and pressed or loose powders which are called translucent, they don’t contain (barely) any actual color. Others may have a subtle sheen that gives the appearance of a glow. While all of them will help set makeup, not all will do so equally well and will look as good. That’s why I just summed up the best translucent powders on the market, this way you don’t have to waste your money.
FAQ
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Adding to my list for future reference: the Urban Decay All Nighter Waterproof Setting Powder; Huda Beauty Easy Bake Loose Baking and Setting Powder; bareMinerals Mineral Veil Talc Free Setting Powder; Charlotte Tilbury Airbrush Flawless Finish Powder (already a wish list place holder!); and the elf High Definition Powder HD Loose Setting Powder.
How do you apply your loose powders Simone? It’s been YEARS since I last wore powder! :O
Recently I have been really into a puff! I use the Beautyblender Power Pocket Puff, adding a bit of powder and dab it under my eyes and around the face. But if I want just a light bit of overall powder, I use a fluffy brush. If I’m not using the puff, I’d also like to use a small fluffy brush for under my eyes! Hope this helps. 🙂
Love the laura mericer loose powder! Have been enjoying the By Terry one recently too and really want to try more ELF so will givie this powder a go! xx
Danielle’s Beauty BlogÂ
I definitely need a new powder (actually, I need a whole new base routine because my current foundation/powder/bronzer just isn’t sitting well on my skin right now, weird!) so this is very helpful. I think the $30-$40 mark is fine, as long as it’s a powder that is worth the price, like the Laura Mercier ones seem to be. I’ve heard a lot of great things about that brand but I’m yet to actually try anything from there, so I might invest in one of the powders, particularly for oily/combo skin and see if it’s worth the hype!
Oh no, I hate when that happens.. it could be the weather? The Laura Mercier powders are literally top-notch, quite expensive but so worth it. I can tell when I used another powder, the finished look just doesn’t look as good as it does when I use Laura Mercier!