Wet'n'Wild Take On The Day Mattifying Powder - NARS Light Reflecting Powder Dupe?

Monday, February 10, 2014

Good evening! A while back I picked up the new Wet'n'Wild Take On The Day Mattifying Powder in Pedestal and have been wearing it to compare with my beloved NARS Light Reflecting Pressed Powder. Alas, I wanted to post pictures sooner but it's pretty much been cloudy/raining nonstop since I've had it.

It's priced at $4.99 and is one of the new Wet'n'Wild Fergie products for 2014, can be found as a part of the permanent wall display. The fact that there is a color name (Pedestal) makes me wonder if WnW intends on releasing more shades and named this shade anticipating the need for distinction. Who knows.

This compact contains .21 oz of product and has a little chamber for a thin flocked sponge but no mirror. Hard to capture on camera, but the powder is slightly pearly looking.

Ingredients:
Silica, Cetearyl Ethylhexanoate, Synthetic Fluorphlogopite, Ethyl Macadamiate, Glycerin, Polysorbate 80, Phenoxyethanol, Caprylyl Glycol, Hexylene Glycol, Ethylhexylglycerin, Chondrus Crispus (Carrageenan) Extract, Methylisothiazolinone, Xanthan Gum, CI 77891/Titanium Dioxide

In case you were wondering (like I was) Chondrus crispus is "Irish moss", a type of red algae.

I don't have my packaging for the NARS powder any more so here's the info as posted on Paula's Choice. NARS Light Reflecting Pressed Powder ingredients:

Synthetic Fluorphlogopite, Silica, Cetearyl Ethylhexanoate, Glycerin, Squalane, Octyldodecyl Stearoyl Stearate, Polysorbate 80, Caprylyl Glycol, Ethylhexylglycerin, Carrageenan, Xanthan Gum, 1, 2-Hexanediol, Pentaerythrityl Tetra-Di-T-Butyl Hydroxyhydrocinnamate, Maris Aqua (Sea Water), Ascophyllum Nodosum (Ascophyllum Nodosum Extract), Magnesium Silicate, Tocopheryl Acetate, Phenoxyethanol, Potassium Sorbate, Tin Oxide, Mica, Titanium Dioxide, Iron Oxides

Ingredients that both have in common are colored red. It's also worth while to note that the ingredients in the Pressed and Loose versions of the NARS Light Reflecting Powder are slightly different, so I'm only comparing the Wet'n'Wild to the Pressed version. The NARS powder contains Ascophyllum nodosum (common brown algae) instead of Chondrus crispus but as they are both algae in small amounts, I thought that perhaps they would be considered comparable (but hey, I'm not an algae expert so I could be horribly wrong). Basically what I'm trying to point out is that they have many ingredients in common and have a very similar texture and look.

Here's what they look like swatched side by side. They're both quite translucent with a bit of a white cast that blends out, so they're rather hard to capture. The Wet'n'Wild is less shimmery but has bigger particles of sparkle. It also has a bit more of a white cast than the NARS. The NARS looks more pearly; has more of a shimmery sheen than sparkle.

The Wet'n'Wild Take On The Day Mattifying Powder performs much like the NARS, a nice light blurring effect that is especially noticeable in photographs. It also has mild oil control properties but manages not to dry out my dry skin. The sparkle is really not noticeable unless I'm in direct, super bright sunlight in which case I do see some sparkle particles.

Since I'm a curious individual, I excavated the Wet'n'Wild to see if repressing is a possibility. It is! It actually felt even finer milled once I dug some out and repressed it with alcohol. The texture however, was more prone to crumbling. My main purpose for digging through the pan was to see if the level of sparkle was consistent all the way through, and it was.

On the left side of the picture I'm wearing Wet'n'Wild Take On The Day Mattifying Powder in Pedestal while on the right side of the picture, I have on the NARS Light Reflecting Pressed Powder. For me the difference is indistinguishable once the product has been patted on with a flocked sponge and lightly swirled with a clean face brush. For this picture, I have not blurred or touched up any part of the skin, only adjusted the photo's warmth and lighting.

The real difference for me lies in the quality of the packaging. The Wet'n'Wild Pedestal is bulkier and doesn't have a pouch the way the NARS does. It's just not something I would toss into my purse (like that ill-fated Sephora foundation that exploded a while back) and expect to hold up. I'm entertaining the notion of repressing the Wet'n'Wild into the empty NARS pan once I run out but the frail nature of repressed products probably keep me from doing so.

The only thing that keeps me from calling this a functional dupe is that I've noticed that other reviewers have mentioned how sparkly theirs is, name Emi's review here. My compact seems to be less sparkly, perhaps a quality control issue? I'm not sure. Based on my single compact, I'd call it a 95% dupe, but taking account into the experience of others, I'd say maybe 90%. There's a slight difference, but the powder itself is ridiculously similar and a good budget friendly alternative.

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