NARS All Day Luminous Powder Foundation

NARS is one of my favourite beauty brands, but I haven’t purchased any of their base products for over a year now as their newer releases were mainly targeted towards those with oily skin, and I have super dry skin. I have suffered from acne since I was 14 years old, and even now in my late twenties, my skin has always been plagued by blemishes which has always got me down and left me feeling self conscious about my complexion.

I don’t know why, but for the last month or so, my skin has made a remarkable improvement and has been a lot better behaved although I know I’m totally going to jinx it now I’ve admitted it on my blog. I usually favour the fuller coverage foundations as they provided the coverage I needed to hide my blemishes but now my skin is better for the time being, I’ve been looking at lighter coverage base options and I really wanted to try a powder foundation to see if it’d work better for me now I don’t need super full coverage.

In my quest for the perfect powder foundation, I decided upon the NARS All Day Luminous Powder Foundation £33 as it sounded like it would be ideal for my skin and I knew that if it didn’t work as a powder foundation, I could still use it as a powder to set my liquid foundation instead.

The NARS All Day Luminous Powder Foundation is described as having an exclusive Luminous Enhancing Technology which smoothes and evens the complexion with colour that lasts even in the highest humidity. It is available in a global range of 15 shades enriched with skincare benefits and SPF protection to improve the skin’s appearance with every application.

The NARS All Day Luminous Powder Foundation can be used both wet or dry, and the compact houses a little sponge within the base for fuller coverage application or you can use a brush for a lighter coverage. The NARS All Day Luminous Powder Foundation compact has the trademark NARS rubberised coating which is a fingerprint magnet, but I for one personally really love the rubberised packaging and the compact opens and closes with a magnet similar to the packaging of their Dual Intensity Eyeshadows, except considerably larger.

I was particularly intrigued by the NARS All Day Luminous Powder Foundation as it claims to be sweat proof, whilst being lightweight on the skin with impressive statistics from those that have trialled the foundation;

– 95% agree the product feels lightweight on the skin
– 92% agree the product leaves skin with a natural finish
– 92% agree the product evens out skintone
– 92% agree the product smoothes our the surface of skin
– 94% agree the products color stays fresh after hours of wear
– 94% agree the product improves skins appearance
– 92% agree the product improves the overall quality of the skin
– 91% agree the product leaves skin looking more youthful

From the shades on offer, I opted for the palest shade; Siberia which is supposedly ‘light with a neutral balance of pink/yellow undertones’. I have the NARS Sheer Glow Foundation in the shade Siberia too, but it’s very yellow in tone so I expected the Siberia shade of the powder to be equally yellow but it really is quite neutral and it matches my skintone amazingly well – so much so, you can barely see it on my skin in the swatch photo.

The powder feels quite dry, but it’s rather creamy and I don’t find that it clings to my dry patches which was a big surprise as most powders like to exacerbate dry patches. Through trial and error, I’ve found that the powder applies best when used without a primer, as it can look a little cakey when I use a primer but if I just apply over my skincare it looks a lot better and very natural.

I like to use a large fluffy brush to apply the powder in the centre of my face and work outwards, and the coverage is buildable which again I didn’t expect from a powder foundation. I have tried powder foundations before, but this one is the easiest to apply that I’ve tried.

The coverage is what I’d describe as being light to medium, so I wouldn’t be able to use it when I have a lot of active breakouts but for when my skin’s as clear as it is at the moment, it really is perfect and I love that it has an SPF of 25 for additional skin protection.

I don’t hear much about this product within the bloggersphere which I don’t understand as it’s an amazing makeup product, and I feel it needs a lot more praise as it’s my perfect powder foundation which can also work to set liquid foundation too.

All products featured on Gemma Etc. are PR samples or gifted items, unless otherwise indicated. This post may contain affiliate links. If you wish to find out more, please see my Disclaimer within my navigation bar.