Whether with setting powders, lipsticks, liquid blushes or even neck skincare products, at least a dozen brands, including Huda Beauty, Makeup By Mario, Danessa Myricks, One/Size, Refy, Tower 28, Violette FR, Westmore Beauty, Sara Happ, Caliray, Polite Society, LYS Beauty, Ilia, Iconic London and Milani, have reeled out releases promising a blurring effect. The releases come as consumers are trying to replicate the smoothing qualities of digital filters when they’re not in pixel form.

Celebrity makeup artist Michela Wariebi says, “These products are growing in popularity because we are in a time where everything is filmed and photographed and, because of filters and Photoshop, there’s an unrealistic expectation of perfection that is directly impacting the types of innovation brands are chasing.”

Tower 28 founder Amy Liu adds that nostalgia for products from the late 1990s and early 2000s, when powders were all the rage, could be playing into the wave of blurring formulas. “Thankfully, gone are the days of cakey powders that seemed to enhance every flaw,” says Liu. “It’s exciting to see the innovations in formulas.”

Wende Zomnir, founder of Caliray and founding partner of Urban Decay, views ingredient innovation as an important accelerant of the blurring trend. “We have dimethicone that can be processed differently so that [products are] not so heavy and thick, they’re lighter weight, they’re clean,” she says, “You can get all of these great effects, and you can do it in a lightweight, really beautiful, natural way, why wouldn’t you take that blur?”

The blurring products are also responding to consumer activity online. From the first to second quarters this year, Google data tracked by search intelligence firm Spate shows a 116.1% jump in searches related to “blurring powders” and a 39.3% increase in searches related to “blurring.” Addison Cain, insights and marketing lead at Spate, points out the recent growth in searches for blurring powders is driven by Laneige’s Neo Essential Blurring Finish Powder. On TikTok, Spate has discovered the topic of blurring has diminished from the first to second quarters this year.

Tower 28 is riding consumer interest in blurring powder. The sensitive skin brand’s GetSet Blur + Set Pressed Powder amassed a 5,000-person wait list prior to its Aug. 13 launch. Liu says, “Traditional powders often make textured skin look worse by emphasizing skin issues, but sensitive skin can be oily, too, so a mattifying powder that truly blurs and sets was the goal. GetSet [is] a pressed powder designed with sensitive skin in mind that gives you the performance of a setting spray plus the blurring effect and instantly mattifying benefit of a powder, all without talc.”

On its website, Sephora is spotlighting blurring foundations such as Huda Beauty’s Easy Blur and Ilia’s Skin Rewind Foundation and Concealer Complexion Stick with the slogan, “Enter the matte renaissance.” To produce blurring and mattifying effects, brands are turning to ingredients such as kaolin clay, Matrixyl 3000, mica and silica. Krupa Koestline, cosmetic chemist and founder of product development firm KKT Consultants, identifies cornstarch, microcrystalline cellulose and lauroyl lysine as other blurring ingredients. She says they’re “similar to silica and kaolin, where they are round-shaped natural powders and therefore help with blurring.”

Nylon-12 and alumina are blurring instigators as well. Koestline says the former gives a “soft-focus effect” due to its spherical shape that diffuses light and reduces the visibility of fine lines and pores. She details the latter scatters light to help “reduce visible skin texture irregularities.”

GetSet Blur + Set Pressed Powder and Caliray’s new Blurry Blush are formulated with kaolin clay. Zomnir characterizes Blurry Blush as a fresh take on color cosmetic. She says, “We wanted to create a little bit of a different effect…that gives you that natural skin finish, and the edges get super blurred. I love products that surprise you with the results.”

Caliray was about the blur before this latest blush launch. Its Sundrip Skin-Boosting Peptide Serum Bronzer has Matrixyl 3000 peptides to blur fine lines and support the skin barrier. Silica is in the brand’s So Blown Blurring Primer, and it’s in GetSet Blur + Set Pressed Powder, Makeup By Mario’s SurrealSkin Soft Blur Setting Powder and LYS Beauty’s Triple Fix Blurring Skin Tint Foundation Stick.

Speaking about So Blown Blurring Primer, Zomnir says, “It’s looking for ways of using an existing product and adding a new texture or adding different things to it,” she instructs. “With a traditional primer, blurring means spackle. It means dry, it means thick. This is light, refreshing, hydrating. You don’t get a lot of coverage, but it actually makes your skin look really perfected.”

LYS Beauty’s Triple Fix Blurring Skin Tint Foundation Stick features Solesphere H-51, a mineral microspherical silica from the company AGC Chemicals. LYS Beauty founder Tisha Thompson says, “It provides pore-minimizing effects and leaves your skin silky smooth.”

Blurring products generally prioritize hydration and have ingredients like hyaluronic acid and shea butter familiar to consumers from their skincare products. For cosmetics brands, the blurring and hydrating capabilities enable blurring products to live in the hybrid beauty product space between makeup and skincare that’s expanded as the “skinification” phenomenon has taken ahold of the beauty industry. The phenomenon involves products across categories delivering skincare results and being integrated into skincare regimens.

The skincare-makeup crossover allows blurring makeup products to slot into routines producing “no-makeup makeup looks” that employ makeup to enhance the skin without it appearing overly done or unnatural. With GetSet, Liu says, “If you prefer a minimal makeup look, you can use it on targeted areas of your face prone to higher shine, and for whatever makeup you wear, it makes the perfect transfer and sweat-proof base.”