Loose Setting Powder Is Back, Reengineered to Look Like Skin

Loose setting powder spent the past decade as a supporting player, dusted on to blot shine and lock foundation in place. In 2026 it's being relaunched as the product doing the work, with Charlotte Tilbury, Dior and Too Faced all pushing new or reworked formulas built to read as skin rather than as a matte finish sitting on top of it.

Charlotte Tilbury's Airbrush Flawless Blur Loose Powder, which reached the brand's app before rolling out online and in stores on August 27, is the clearest case of a powder being engineered like a skincare product. It pairs what the brand calls Powder Blur Technology with oil-and-shine-control microspheres and hydrating actives, claims 24-hour oil control and hydration, and ships in seven shades, five translucent and two tinted for under-eye correction. At £40, it's priced closer to a complexion treatment than a finishing touch.

Dior's Forever On Set Powder, part of a wider Forever complexion relaunch that also includes new Skin Veil and Velvet Veil foundations, makes the same pitch from a different angle: talc-free, hyaluronic-acid infused, and built by combining platelet-shaped and spherical powder particles so it holds up in humid climates rather than just absorbing sweat and going patchy. Dior creative director Peter Philips has described the goal as designing complexion products for real skin in real climates, an explicit break from the flattening, cakey finish that defined powder through the mid-2010s baking era.

That era is the backdrop against which both launches are being read. Baking, the technique of applying heavy loose powder and letting it set before dusting off the excess, was popularized industry-wide roughly a decade ago and produced the ultra-matte look that dominated tutorials and red carpets alike. The correction now underway treats that finish as the problem to be engineered around, with brands competing on how invisible the powder can be made to look rather than how much shine it can kill.

The launches aren't isolated product decisions. Puig, which owns Charlotte Tilbury, reported first-half 2026 makeup revenue of 359 million euros, up 9.1% on a like-for-like basis, and has repeatedly singled out Charlotte Tilbury's complexion category, including this powder and the earlier Unreal Highlighter, as the driver of that growth. Dior's powder sits inside a comparable strategic push at LVMH's Parfums Christian Dior, where a single new powder is really one piece of a coordinated foundation-and-powder overhaul rather than a standalone release. Consumer discovery is running ahead of the marketing calendar too: side-by-side Charlotte Tilbury-versus-Dior comparison videos were circulating on TikTok before either brand's full retail rollout was complete, turning what is technically a reformulation story into a live product rivalry playing out in real time.