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If there's a long-term makeup wearer who hasn't tried Benefit Cosmetics's Hoola Bronzer at least once in their life, I certainly haven't met them yet. I can recall with alarming clarity the very first time I walked into a Sephora in the late 2000s and immediately gravitated toward its little purple cardboard box, standing out so clearly from the rest of the plastic compacts in the store. It certainly helped that it'd already been recommended to me by every single magazine, makeup blogger, and YouTuber out there at the time.
From first impression onward, I adored that bronzer for its soft texture, matte finish, and shade that wasn't too dark or orange for my very fair skin tone with varied undertones (a rarity during the peak of Jersey Shore mania). I wasn't nearly the first person to have discovered this, of course. As Kate Helfrich, Benefit's senior vice president of global product and service innovation, tells Allure, Hoola made its big debut back in 2001 — and this May marks the product's 20th birthday.
Hoola was originally developed as a solution to an issue customers were having with another one of Benefit's products. "Before Hoola, Benefit sold a dark tan loose powder bronzer that came in a pot," Helfrich, who joined the company after Hoola's development, explains.
Though that bronzer looked beautiful on skin, it was "messy beyond belief," as she describes it. So brand founders (and twin sisters) Jean and Jane Ford took matters into their own hands. "[They] decided they needed to transform it into a pressed powder that was easier to use and apply without making such a huge mess… Thus, Hoola was launched as Benefit's first-ever Box O' Powder."
Nicola wears the original Hoola Matte Bronzer.
Since then, Benefit has stuck to the don't-fix-what-ain't-broke mantra with Hoola, the formula and packaging of which hasn't changed a bit in the past 20 years. Clearly, that seems to be working because one box of the bronzer sold every 15 seconds throughout 2020 (the brand had to produce 1,200 bronzers every hour just to keep up), according to statistics from the brand. Unsurprisingly, it's also a Best of Beauty Award winner.
What makes Hoola such a success? Probably a combination of things. For one, Hoola addressed a hole in the beauty market at the time of its launch. "Hoola's formula was unique at the time for offering a shimmer-free, neutral matte bronzer for a natural-looking glow," Helfrich explains.
And there's also the fact that Benefit "spent quite a lot of time to find a perfect blend of white, brown, red, purple, and yellow pigments," in order to create a shade that worked on a wide variety of skin tones and truly looked bronze rather than orange.
You don't have to overthink its application, either. Just take it from makeup artist Mario Dedivanovic, who previously told Allure that "bronzing is about warming up the skin where the sun would naturally hit."
With Hoola's provided brush or a separate tool of your choosing, dust the powder onto the high points of your face (cheekbones, bridge of the nose, center of the forehead, and chin). If you feel like you've overdone it, makeup artist Pep Gay recommends you "buff the edges of your bronzer with a clean makeup brush," as he previously told us.
Gabi wears Hoola Glow Shimmer Bronzer.
As you probably already know, Benefit has been expanding its range of Box O' Powder products including other bronzer shades, highlighters, and blushes since 2001. To celebrate Hoola's big day, another one is joining the family: Hoola Glow, which is the same beloved shade with super-fine gold shimmer pigments that catch the light for a subtle, candle-lit sheen. It's limited-edition, though, so it won't be hanging around for long.
We put the new formula to the test to see how it lives up to the original. The consensus? Yes, please and thank you. Editorial assistant Gabi Thorne — who has medium-deep skin with neutral undertones — usually wears bronzers that are deeper than Hoola Glow but still found herself impressed with its color payoff.
"It's packed with shimmer but I don't feel like I'm just applying a highlighter on my skin," she explains. "It has a nice red tone to it that adds a light glow to my cheeks, even though this shimmery bronzer is a bit lighter than my usual shade."
Commerce writer Angela Trakoshis, a veteran Hoola fan with medium skin and olive/yellow undertones, will be adding Glow to her summer makeup staples. "Benefit Cosmetics' Hoola Bronzer is such a classic when it comes to not only bronzers but makeup as a whole category… it was the first bronzer I ever purchased," she recalls. "This limited-edition Glow version is kind of like a blush-bronzer hybrid. With just one sweep, I look like I spent a day at the beach."
Benefit Cosmetics Hoola Matte Bronzer
Benefit Cosmetics Hoola Glow Shimmer Bronzer
To wish this beloved product a happy 20th birthday — wow, she's almost old enough to drink — you can purchase Hoola Matte Bronzer and/or Hoola Glow Shimmer Bronzer is $30 each and available now at sephora.com.
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