Updated: September 30, 2026
Powder usually enters a makeup routine when shine has become something to control. That makes HERA’s newest Felix campaign slightly counterintuitive. The brand’s September 2026 Still Glowing look pairs Reflection Skin Glow Foundation with a new Reflection Skin Glow Powder—and still calls the result glow.
The interesting question is not whether Felix looks luminous in a campaign photograph. He does. The useful question is how a powder can reduce oil, blur texture and extend foundation wear without turning HERA’s “inner glow” concept into a fully matte face.
Glow is not the same thing as maximum shine
A face can reflect light in many ways.
A wet-looking highlight on the cheekbone is obvious because it produces concentrated bright areas. Oily shine across the nose and forehead can also be highly reflective, although it may not be the finish a makeup artist wants. A softly luminous foundation can create lower-contrast reflection across a much broader area.
Calling all three “glow” hides the placement.
HERA’s current powder strategy becomes more understandable when glow is treated as a distribution problem rather than a competition to produce the brightest possible surface.
The brand describes Reflection Skin Glow Powder as an ultra-fine, skincare-coated loose powder that diffuses light, blurs the appearance of pores and smooths uneven-looking texture while allowing “inner glow” to remain visible.
Its official directions also tell us where the brand expects the powder to go: begin with oil-prone areas at the center of the cheeks and forehead, then use a folded puff around the eyebrows, sides of the nose and smile lines before blending outward.
That is not the application pattern of a highlighter.
The 2025 campaign helps explain the vocabulary
Felix joined HERA as a global ambassador in 2025, when the Reflection Skin Glow campaign showed two explicitly named glow looks.
Refined Inner Glow
Face: Reflection Skin Glow Foundation 21N1
Eyes: Quad Eye Color #03 Nudy Taupe
Lips: Sensual Nude Glow / Lingerie
The base is the main glow language: a broad luminous skin surface rather than a separate highlighter step in the official look notes.
Radiant Glass Skin
Face: Reflection Skin Glow Cushion Foundation 21N1
Cheeks: Reflection Cushion #00N1 used as highlight, alongside lip-and-cheek color
Lips: Sensual Nude Gloss / Brownie Boy
This look adds more deliberately placed reflection on top of the base.
Those 2025 looks are not the main subject of this article, but they establish something useful. HERA was already treating glow as more than one finish.
The 2026 campaign adds a new complication: powder.
What the new powder is designed to remove
Loose powder can absorb oil and reduce some surface reflection. If used heavily across every luminous area, that can flatten a dewy base.
HERA is trying to make the intervention more selective.
The company describes the product as preserving translucent-looking inner glow while smoothing visible texture. Its 2026 Japanese campaign page also emphasizes absorbing excess sebum and maintaining a clear-looking complexion over time.
There is a visual logic here.
If uncontrolled oil becomes stronger at the center of the face as hours pass, the reflection may shift from an intentional luminous base to a more irregular shine pattern. Powdering the nose, inner cheeks, forehead and expression lines can reduce that later shine without necessarily placing the same amount of powder over every high point of the face.
That explanation is a reading of the makeup strategy. It is not a claim that every person should powder the same zones.
The powder has two shades, but they are not foundation shades
Reflection Skin Glow Powder currently comes in 01 Glow and 02 Lavender Glow.
The shade names make another distinction visible. A translucent loose powder can influence surface color and light without functioning like a full-coverage foundation shade.
The 2026 Japanese Still Glowing page describes an off-white pigment intended to blend with skin tone. HERA’s product page separately lists the lavender option.
A lavender cast can visually interact with yellow tones differently from an off-white one, but the finished result depends on application amount, base makeup and the wearer’s skin tone. The shade name is not a universal color-correction result.
The campaign film came before the new powder
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What HERA actually tested
The powder page contains more evidence than a typical campaign caption, but the numbers need to stay attached to their methods.
| Claim on current page | Evidence type disclosed by HERA | What it does not mean |
|---|---|---|
| 96% say it allows a thin, sheer skin finish | Satisfaction survey; June 15–19, 2026; 31 women aged 30–45 | Not a laboratory measure that the film is “96% transparent.” |
| 93% say skin does not feel tight or dehydrated over time | Satisfaction survey in the same disclosed test period/sample | Not proof that no user can feel dry. |
| -3°C | Measured immediately after product application following thermal skin stimulation | Not evidence that normal facial skin remains 3°C cooler all day. |
| +149% foundation longevity | Calculated 24-hour change rate comparing Reflection Foundation alone with foundation plus powder | Not “149% better skin” and not a universal wear-time multiplier for every foundation. |
The last number is particularly easy to inflate in retelling.
HERA does not simply say that the powder makes all makeup “149% longer lasting.” The footnote explains a specific calculation comparing the change rate after 24 hours between Reflection Foundation used alone and the foundation used with the powder.
The comparison belongs to that test setup.
Why powder can improve a glow look without adding glow
The powder does not need to produce a wet reflection itself to contribute to a luminous look.
If it reduces visible clumping, softens the appearance of pores and controls some oil in areas that tend to become shiny, it can change the contrast between the smoother base and the remaining reflective zones.
That is a different job from a liquid highlighter.
It is also different from trying to mattify every square centimeter of the face.
The distinction helps explain why HERA’s instructions focus on center-face oil-prone areas and detailed zones around the nose and smile lines.
Felix’s skin is not the test instrument
Campaign imagery can make product causation look obvious.
Felix has luminous skin in the image. The products sit beside him. The viewer naturally links the two.
But a campaign face contains makeup artistry, lighting, camera settings, selection of the final frames and post-production. The photograph cannot tell us Felix’s baseline hydration, pore size or natural oil production.
The brand’s product tests and the campaign photographs therefore have different jobs.
The campaign shows the visual direction HERA wants.
The test footnotes describe particular product outcomes under stated conditions.
Neither should be used to diagnose Felix’s actual skin.
From “glow now” to “still glowing”
The change from the 2025 campaign to 2026 is subtle but editorially interesting.
The earlier Reflection material showed different types of glow through foundation, cushion and targeted highlighting.
The new campaign is concerned with what happens later.
Foundation can look beautifully luminous when it is first applied. Hours later, sebum, movement and humidity can change where the shine appears and how texture reads. HERA’s new powder is positioned as a way of managing that later stage without abandoning the original glow concept.
That is why powder appears in a campaign that still calls itself Still Glowing.
The powder is not there because HERA has suddenly decided glow was a mistake. It is there because the brand is trying to control which reflections remain visible as the makeup wears.
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