Blowfish passwords indirectly saved through a separate Model method do not work

The following does work:

// app/Controller/UsersController.php
$this->User->save(array('pwd'=>$new_pwd),false);

The following does not work:

// app/Controller/UsersController.php
$this->User->setPassword($new_pwd);

The User model has the beforeSave() which works and the custom method setPassword() that does not:

// app/Model/User.php
public function beforeSave($options = array()) {
    if (isset($this->data[$this->alias]['pwd'])&&!empty($this->data[$this->alias]['pwd'])) {
        $new_password = $this->data[$this->alias]['pwd'];
        $passwordHasher = new BlowfishPasswordHasher();
        $this->data[$this->alias]['pwd'] = $passwordHasher->hash($new_password);
    }
    return true;
}

public function setPassword($new_password) {
    $passwordHasher = new BlowfishPasswordHasher();
    $result = $this->save(array(
        'pwd' => $passwordHasher->hash($new_password),
    ), false);
    return $result;
}

So the setPassword() is more or less identical yet whenever I try to log in with the password saved that way, $this->Auth->login() returns false. I can see the password hash updated in the database though.

Am I missing something? Please help

setPassword() internally also calls beforeSave() via save(). It becomes pretty clear that you are hashing it twice then, making it impossible to be used anymore.