Benefit Hoola Bronzer: Powder vs Liquid

Hii everyone!

Summer is here, which means it’s time to bronze your face and put a fake tan on your body! It’s always cloudy in The Netherlands, even in August. The sun is hiding behind the clouds but we still need that bronzy glow to get that summery feeling. This is especially true for me, since I avoid the sun. I do that because I get allergic reactions when I’ve been exposed to the sun for too long. How do I get my summer glow? I’m going to compare the Benefit Hoola Bronzer with Dew The Hoola, which will be a battle between Hoola powder and Hoola liquid! What are the pros and cons of these products and which one will be the winner? Let’s get started!

Benefit Cosmetics creates the most amazing products, from makeup to skin care items! They are usually known for their catchy cute packaging (like their new Brow line!) but Benefit became popular when the Hoola Bronzer became available in my opinion. This bronzer is known for having “the best color” and being the “most universal” because everyone owns and loves it! But a while ago, Benefit Cosmetics released a summer collection with a newer version of the Hoola Bronzer: Dew the Hoola. A bronzer in a bottle! I had to know which one was better. If the Hoola Bronzer is such a success, Dew the Hoola won’t be that different, right?

Benefit Cosmetics Hoola Bronzer , €33,- for 8 gram ($29,-)

What it is:
An award-winning matte bronzer.

What it does:
Dust on Benefit’s iconic hoola Matte Bronzer across the chin, cheeks, and forehead for a healthy, natural-looking tan year-round that flatters any skintone. Complete with soft, natural-bristle cheek brush, it delivers pure matte color—without leaving behind shine or shimmer.

Beauty tip:
Beauty tip: This is matte bronzer is every makeup artist’s secret weapon for contouring, sculpting, and defining features. Apply hoola and watt’s up (sold separately) for a perfect contouring duo. Always tap off excess powder to avoid applying too much color.

The Hoola Bronzer is my favorite contouring powder besides my Too Faced Chocolate Bronzer! I use it on my cheeks, forehead, jawline and nose. Hoola is perfect for creating the illusion of a slim-looking face and having a sharp nose (this is especially true if you have a flat Asian nose like me…). At the beginning I used the bronzer as a blush, but I didn’t like the results. I used it for contouring after a while and it worked like a charm! The color is perfect. It doesn’t make me look orange like an oompa-loompa. I doesn’t make me look gray like other cool-toned bronzers do either.

The packaging is easy to use. It has the same design as other Benefit blushes. It has a little mirror on the inside which is great. I do find it a bit difficult to use the powder because the packaging doesn’t allow you to make swatches with your finger because the powder is beneath the box. However, Benefit improved their Hoola Bronzer packaging by putting the powder more on top of the box if I’m not mistaken.

Applying it is very easy, you can use every kind of brush depending on where you want to apply it. I prefer using my own brushes instead of the one that came with the Hoola Bronzer. I find the bristles too hard and itchy for my skin and I don’t find it easy to blend with it.

The powder is easy to blend and it doesn’t smell unpleasant. I did have some problems at the beginning because it looked very patchy on my skin, but it looked well-blended on the skin when I used a different brush. You can build up the product without making it look cakey and you will still have a very natural look. The powder stays on pretty long depending on the area where you applied it or the primer you used. When I contour my nose with the Hoola bronzer it disappears within a few hours, while the bronzer on my cheek will stay on all day!

Benefit Dew the Hoola, €30,50 for 30ml ($28,-)

What it is:
A soft-matte liquid bronzer for the face.

What it does:
Bestselling Hoola bronzing powder is now available in this new must-have liquid formula. Dew the Hoola Soft Matte Liquid Bronzer gives your face the most believable bronze. The smoothing effects and lightweight, buildable texture can be applied on bare skin or over foundation for a shimmerless, sunkissed glow. Apply the universal shade on any skintone for a sheer, seamless, natural-looking tan.

What it is formulated WITHOUT:
– Parabens
– Sulfates
– Phthalates

Dew the Hoola is a liquid bronzer in a bottle. It came out earlier this year with tons of other products that were summer friendly. I was really excited when I won this bronzer in a giveaway (shout out to my friend Jyoti who won this item together with me! BF4EVA). At the time I received this product I was still a bit concerned about how to use both items in the best possible way, but I think I’ve found the best way to use this liquid bronzer now.

The packaging is absolutely amazing! I love everything that is gold, who doesn’t? It has a nice grip in your hand and it looks great on pictures. The liquid bronzer comes out of a pomp which is great for being more hygienic. You can also easily pump out the right amount of product. But the packaging looks a bit bulky doesn’t it? I expected something more slick or cute.

I don’t like to use liquid bronzers or blushes because I think they look less natural on my skin. Besides, I have a super oily skin so they usually melt away immediately! But the Dew The Hoola looked great and the application was fast and easy. Just take a small amount on your fingers, rub them together and tap them on your skin. You can also blend the product with a brush, but your fingers will create a better natural finish.

The product itself is a bit “mehhh”. When I pumped the product out of the tube, the smell was the first thing I noticed. It smells terrible. It’s an intruding chemical smell. Nothing flowery or coconut-like which you’d expect from a summer item. This is something that would stop me from using this liquid bronzer. The smell is just too much to handle! And then the color: it is orange. I’m a NC20/NC25 but this color doesn’t compliment my yellow skin at all.

Left: Dew The Hoola – Right: Hoola Bronzer

The Hoola Bronzer has a very natural bronzy finish compared to Dew The Hoola. Dew The Hoola clearly has a ‘line’ where you can see where the bronzer stops, even when I tried to fade it out. The Hoola Bronzer is easy to blend with a brush, so you can fade it out and create a natural glow. I also find that Dew The Hoola feels a bit sticky on my oily skin while the Hoola Bronzer feels like satin on my skin.

I think that the Hoola Bronzer Powder is clearly the best  bronzer item of all time from Benefit Cosmetics! Its performance is better, the color is universal, it is easy to use and you can use it on many parts of your body! Dew The Hoola is just not my kind of thing. Besides the intruding smell, the color doesn’t fit my NC20/NC25 skin. It feels sticky on my oily skin and it doesn’t give me the beautiful glow I achieve with the Hoola Bronzer.

I can recommend the Hoola Bronzer to everyone, but I think I don’t need to because everyone already owns it. That’s how popular it is. It can be used as blush or as contouring powder. It’s reasonably expensive, but it’s worth every penny as well! The Hoola Bronzer is something I would definitely repurchase after it hits the pan, which isn’t the case with Dew the Hoola. I honestly can’t say who will buy it. Perhaps tan freaks who want to re-apply their tan easily when they are on the go would. But I won’t repurchase it! Which I think is really sad, because I read a lot of good reviews about it, but it just doesn’t work on me …

You can purchase your own Dew The Hoola here  for €30,50 and the Hoola Bronzer here  for €33,- at Douglas.nl  (Sephora.com) 

Which item do you prefer?

Thanks a lot for reading x

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