Nitroglycerine in its basic form is a kind of soupy liquid. It's mixed with saw-dust to make dynamite and cotton threads to make cordite, and there are other forms (smokeless powder, for instance, used to make modern rifle cartridges) but if you look at it closely, it's granular and not really a powder.

      Black powder really is a powder in it original state. It's make from charcoal to and looks very much like ground charcoal. It really is a powder.