Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Benefit Hoola Bronzing Powder or NARS Laguna Bronzing Powder

Many of you may know the two famous bronzer by Benefit and one by NARS. I know that many of you are stuck on which one to by, since they both have gotten good reviews. This is why today I will be going into detail on both of these products and which one I prefer. Both of these bronzers are great for fair to light skin, so if you are medium skin or anything darker I wouldn't recommend any of these two bronzers. Although, the NARS one does have two other shades in Irrésistiblement and Casino.

Benefit Hoola Bronzing Powder:

NEW Packaging

OLD Packaging

The old and new packaging both have the same cover design. The only difference is that the old packaging the cover isn't connect to the actual box, whereas the new one has the cover attach to the box. Which, is a plus so than you can't loose the cover, because when you loose the cover dirt and bacteria can get into the product easier making you break out.

I would say that I really love this bronzer. It retails for $28 without tax in America, so I'm not sure how much it is in Canada and internationally. I love this bronzer, because it is matte and is a few shades darker than my skin tone. I have a fair to light complexion. When you are trying to find a bronzer look for one that is matte and is 2-3 shades darker than your skin so it will do the job naturally, not making you look fake. This is also great for me since I have oily skin, it will not add any more shimmer or glow like the NARS will. Benefit Hoola is worth the $28 in my opinion, it is my perfect and all time favorite bronzer along with the NYC Smooth Skin Bronzing Face Powder in Sunny. Which I'm not going to talk about in this blog because this blog is not about the NYC bronzer, although I can do a separate review on it if you guys want me to. Another, great thing about the Hoola is that it comes with a really nice soft brush. So it is great if you are starting out with makeup or doesn't have many brushes, because it comes with a brush for you already. Now the brush works pretty well, you can definitely use it to bronze your face in the 3E motion and you can definitely contour with it. Except, I find out that I like using a fluffy powder brush better when I am trying to give my face some color, it is just easier in my opinion. For contouring, I like to use an angle contour brush because I think that it is the best brush ever to contour. But once again if you want to use the brush that comes with it, that's perfectly fine it works pretty well. In my opinion, I would rate this bronzer a 5 out of 5 it is just MY perfect bronzer. Hoola is just really pigmented, so a little really goes a long way with this bronzer. You can find this bronzer in stores at Sephora or Ulta. You can also order online from 3 different websites...
http://www.benefitcosmetics.com 
http://www.sephora.com
http://www.ulta.com

NARS Laguna Bronzing Powder:


This is NARS Laguna Bronzer it is basically just a diffused brown powder with gold shimmers. I am not really fond about the gold shimmers, just because I do have oily skin. But I knew about this before I even had it in my makeup collection, but I gotten it as a birthday presents from last year. I am still using the same old one that I got from last year, so it does last you a long time. But I think it also because I don't really use it that much, because I have other bronzers that I like better.

NARS Laguna Bronzer retails for $33 in the US without tax, just a few dollars more than the Benefit Hoola Bronzer. One thing that I would say that this bronzer is better than the Hoola bronzer is that it comes in 2 other shades. Which I have addressed already it comes with Irresistiblement that is describe as a desert glow, so that bronzer is great if you want to have a nice soft glow not really a bronzey face and the bronzer that you would use to contour. The darkest shade it comes in is Casino which is describe as a dark brown with golden shimmer exactly like the Laguna, just darker so it is great for people with a darker complexion maybe like a medium dark to dark. I would say other than that it is just like the Benefit Hoola. This bronzer is also really pigmented,  little goes a long way and it last a long time. I think that this is great if you have dry or normal skin. But for us girls with combination oily skin or oily skin it will work, since the shimmer is that noticeable. Though, it is definitely noticeable or at least for me when I stand in the sun. Overall, I would rate this a 4.5 out of 5. You can get this in stores at NARS counters in Nordstrom or at Sephora. You can also order it online at http://www.narscosmetics.com/color/cheeks/bronzing-powder/laguna http://sephora.com/browse/product.jhtml?id=P12790&categoryId=C10476 http://shop.nordstrom.com/s/nars-bronzing-powder/2893817?origin=category&resultback=1331

In conclusion, I like the Benefit Hoola Bronzing Powder more than the NARS Laguna Bronzing Face Powder. I would also recommend the Benefit Hoola to anyone over the NARS Laguna, but everyone have their opinion and preference.

Here is a swatch of the two bronzers that I have found online side by side:

7 comments:

  1. Hello! I bought Benefit's Hoola. I've just read your post and Nars' Laguna has been love at first sight ^^

    Thanks so much!

    Lorena Be-Bop
    http://beboplashes.blogspot.ie/

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  2. I rcecently got a bronzer brush from avon, and I was wonderign whether there's a similar product out there - this seems to be the one. The shade is almost the smae :) Perhaps I'll prder to try Hoola, although I haven't tried anything by Benefit so far :)

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  3. Wow great post. So detailed! Thanks for sharing :) love your blog too

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