What Is “Blurring” Makeup? Does It Work?

Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photo: Getty Images

When you’re a beauty editor, the most accurate way to spot a beauty trend is your email inbox. So far in September, I’ve received 39 press releases about blurring products. The majority of them are powders (like Tower28 GetSet Blur + Set Powder and Makeup By Mario Soft Blur Setting Powder), but there are also new blurring foundations (Huda Beauty Easy Blur Smoothing Foundation), blushes (Caliray Blurry Blush), and even lip liners (Refy Blur Liners). Makeup artist Nam Vo thinks it may have something to do with the filtered, soft-focus makeup that’s so popular right now. “You know, we did that very contoured look, then there was the whole fresh-girl trend — this is somewhere in the middle,” she says. “There are no lines, nothing harsh, everything’s just kind of soft focus and blended together.”

The first blurring products I remember seeing were primers in the mid-2010s, many of them from K-beauty brands. They were designed to minimize oiliness so your makeup lasted longer, and they also had a light-scattering effect that made pores appear smaller. The thing is, when you put other makeup on top of a blurring primer, some of the soft-focus finish is lost. That’s why I think we’re seeing so many blurring powders, as well as some blurring foundations and blushes: If these products are the last thing you apply — or at least toward the end of your makeup routine — their effects remain visible.

Beauty founder Wende Zomnir knows the term blurring gets thrown around often, but she says it’s not marketing hyperbole. Most brands use it to describe makeup with an immediate, subtle soft-focus effect that makes skin texture look smoother. “If it were just a marketing term, [brands] using it would get called out on TikTok,” she points out. “Beauty customers expect the blurring effect to be visible.”

Chemist Anay Kacharia, a research and development innovation manager at iLabs in New Jersey, says these products often feature ingredients that absorb oil and scatter light to minimize imperfections (in beauty-marketing speak, imperfections are things like fine lines and large pores — anything that makes your skin appear more textured and less smooth). “For that light-diffusion property, they may use powders like silicas, starches, or rice powders,” he says. “And the shape and size of an ingredient like silica affect its oil-absorption, light-scattering properties and how it layers on the skin, so we often use a mix to achieve different effects.” Liquid blurring products like foundations and blushes may contain silicone elastomers, which have a velvety, silky feel and that same light-diffusing effect.

Yes and no. Most blurring makeup (and most makeup in general) is noncomedogenic, meaning it’s tested to ensure it doesn’t clog your pores. Blurring products often contain different types of silicone, which are considered safe for the skin. However, some types of silicone (such as cyclic silicones) are not readily biodegradable, meaning they can build up in the environment (if you want to avoid cyclic silicones, all the brands sold at Credo formulate without them). Another ingredient you might be concerned about is talc, which is often in powders. It has a bad reputation because of its potential for contamination with asbestos, a known carcinogen. While most makeup brands test their raw materials and finished products for safety, some brands have been removing talc from their formulas out of an abundance of concern. Hence, it’s pretty easy to find blurring products that are also “talc-free.”

Blurring products tend to have more slip than traditional products; you may need to play around with them a bit to get used to how they move on skin and find an application technique that works for you. The other issue you might run in to is pilling. As you layer on products — blurring or not — the ingredients in some can interact with the ingredients in others and start to ball up, or pill. Not only does it make you look like you have face dandruff, it means the makeup will not stay put. I’d recommend experimenting with them when you have some time. But all in all, these new products are kind of mistake-proof — if you don’t like what you see, just blend some more until you’re happy with the results.

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