Benefit Porefessional Powder Review

You can tell when a brand has done a mass blogger send-out. A flurry of posts appear in my Bloglovin' timeline, most of them glowingly positive, or with only a few cons. This has been the case over the past couple of weeks with Benefit's new Porefessional Powder. Whenever this happens, I like to hang fire for a few weeks, read all the various reviews and try not to get caught-up in the launch whirlwind.

Having had time to give this new release a thorough road test, here are my thoughts...

For those who haven't heard about it yet, it's the new sister product for Benefit's hugely popular Porefessional Primer. I have to say I really like the primer, so I was excited to see what the powder version had to offer. It's a loose powder that claims not only to minimise pores, but to eliminate shine and leave the skin with an invisible, lightweight matte finish.

The packaging, as always with Benefit, is cute and innovative. A built-in brush and compact powder dispenser makes it perfect for application on the go, but the packaging itself looks and feels quite cheap. Something I would expect (and be impressed with) from from a drugstore brand, but not for the £23.50 price tag. The brush is quite nice and soft but tiny and not something I would use at home.

Packaging aside, the product itself is really nice. It is very lightweight on the skin, and finely milled. It doesn't leave the skin overly matte (something I'm not a fan of!) but looks natural. I'm not sold on the pore-minimising properties, but it does help my makeup last, and keeps it's semi-matte finish and shine at bay for about 4-5 hours before needing a top-up.

My main problem with this powder is that it's just not exceptional. You get 7g for £23.50, so compared to similar products from MAC, Makeup Forever, Illamasqua etc, who offer anything from 8g-15g for less money, it doesn't seem all that amazing.

Don't get me wrong, this product is nice, and good if you like to keep a loose powder in your bag for touch-ups instead of a pressed compact, but apart from that, it's nothing special and in my opinion is overpriced.

Have any of you tried this yet? What do you think of the packaging and price point? The powder is available now, £23.50 with free international delivery here.