I’ve been having a hard time writing this review for the Morphe Cloudlight Soft Glow Veil Powder ($16, 8g, 4 shades). It feels hard to explain it when a product pretty much does what it says it’s going to do, but I still don’t like it. For reference, I’m in my early 40s, and my skin type is dry, sensitive, and eczema-prone. I use heavy and hydrating skincare (glycerin-based serum, heavy oil-based moisturizer), which will affect how products look and perform.

According to Morphe, this is “a sheer, weightless, multi-tone powder that sweeps on to softly set and finish your look with natural radiance.” Again, I pretty much agree. It is weightless, and it sets my makeup well, while also giving radiance. I have the shade Golden Hour, which is described as golden with balancing peach. It doesn’t look very golden on me (NARS Tahoe/Estee Lauder 4W4, olive undertone), and leans more pink, but it is not unflattering. However, since this powder is multi-tone and swirled, each compact will vary slightly in shade. That is something to keep in mind. If you buy it in person, the packaging does allow you to see the powder, so you might be able to pick one with a better swirl pattern based on which shades you need.

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**Morphe Cloudlight Soft Glow Veil Powder, $16 – Swatch

This powder is sheer, but not as sheer in application as the NARS Light Reflecting Pressed Setting Powder ($42, 10g) or the MAC Mineralize Skinfinish Natural Powder ($44, 10g), although the MAC has more coverage than NARS. Morphe does have more coverage than those two powders. I think that is partially because more product picks up on my brush than when I use the NARS and MAC powders. However, even when swatched, I get more pigment from the Morphe Cloudlight Soft Glow Veil than I do from the NARS and MAC powders. The Morphe powder can be applied lightly, but out of the gate, I do see more pigment.

The claims on Ulta’s website also mention that this powder softly blurs and “optically fades fine lines, wrinkles & pores.” I didn’t read the claims before testing this powder. When I used it for the first time, smoothing was the description that came to my mind. Despite being radiant, I did see a smoothing effect. However, the radiance does accentuate more texture than I like. As I continued to test this, I always felt that it looked nice and smooth, considering that it was essentially a shiny powder. However, the NARS Light Reflecting Pressed Powder would still be my preferred choice because I missed its blurring ability. So, to read later that it claims to blur wasn’t necessarily shocking, but it is a hard one for me to agree with completely. I feel like blurring helps reduce raised texture issues, and smoothing helps reduce the appearance of lines. But I have no backing for those thoughts, so maybe they are essentially the same to other people. 

I’m not sure I was able to capture it well in the pictures, but the Morphe powder doesn’t sit as nicely over pores, bumps, and raised texture as NARS and MAC. However, it does minimize the look of my forehead lines better. I have paired the Morphe powder with the NARS Natural Radiant Longwear Foundation (pictured above and below), the NARS Light Reflecting Foundation (pictured above), and the L’oreal True Match Foundation (don’t have pictures). With all of these pairings, it does feel dry/tight on my skin as I wear it throughout the day, but it never looks dry. It is less drying when I’m wearing the Vanicream Facial Moisturizer SPF 30 as my sunscreen. I do get a little shiny through the t-zone in this summer weather, but any foundations I paired with this powder stayed intact. Despite containing silica and talc, I’m not sure if this powder will be mattifying enough for those with oily skin. If you set with a heavier powder and just dust this over the top as a finishing powder, that may work better.

As an undereye powder, it doesn’t perform well for me. This is a regular issue I have, and the Morphe Cloudlight Soft Glow Veil either fails to prevent concealer creasing (e.g., Lancome Teint Idole All Over) or the concealer has faded by the end of the day (e.g., Estee Lauder Futurist Skincealer). Interestingly, it did pair well with the Westman Atelier Vital Skincare Concealer, which had previously not worked (creasing) with my other powders. However, I still experienced fading by the end of the day, but that is a common occurrence with the Westman Atelier concealer, so it could have been either one of them causing the fading issue.

Update September 25, 2025: I forgot to mention that I was impressed that this is one of only two powders I’ve ever tried that minimizes the movement of foundation and concealer under the nose pads of my glasses. The other powder is the Hourglass Veil Translucent Loose Setting Powder.

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	$ 16.00 Sale Price $ 16.00 Regular Price
Morphe Cloudlight Soft Glow Veil Finishing Powder – Golden Hour

While I don’t like how my skin looks with the Morphe Cloudlight Soft Veil Powder compared to the NARS Light Reflecting Pressed Setting Powder (or even the MAC Mineralize Natural Powder), it still performs well for what the Brand is claiming. If you aren’t willing to pay the $42 or $44 for the higher-end powders, $16 for the Morphe powder could be a good option. If you are looking to add radiance to your look and don’t typically have longevity or under-eye creasing issues, this will likely do exactly what you need. If you have a lot of raised texture or bumps, it might accentuate more than you want, which was the case for me.

The bottom line is, I don’t like as much glow on my face as I did 3 years ago. Although I still have dry skin, I think it was even drier when I lived in Missouri and had hard water. I needed more help getting my skin to look radiant rather than dull. Now in Massachusetts, which gets similarly dry but does not have hard water (at least not where I am), my skin is doing better. So I just don’t tend to want to add shine, which this does. I’m also using the bareMinerals Mineral Veil Pressed Powder and the Hourglass Vanish Airbrush Pressed Powder as my face powder more often than the NARS Light Reflecting Pressed these days. So, I do think I would like this powder better if I had never used the NARS and MAC options, but even considering it on its own, I don’t currently want this much radiance added to my look.

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Thanks for reading. I hope you found this helpful. 🙂

I’ll be back with a review of the new Makeup By Mario Softsculpt Blurring Bronzer soon!

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• Blush Index
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