making a custom hourglass palette

A little while ago, I popped by the Hourglass flagship store on Abbot Kinney to cross off something on my makeup bucket list: Create a customised Ambient Lighting Palette. Check!

Hourglass’ Ambient Lighting Powders are a range of six finishing powders/highlighters that give skin an incredibly flattering, natural glow. The powders are named for the ways different types of light that would illuminate your skin, and are ultra finely-milled to give off a subtle, pearly luminosity rather than a high sheen or shimmery finish.

You can buy them individually or in a pre-made palette, but if you have the chance to do it, making your own is so much more fun. I started by consulting the staff on which shades would suit my skin tone and give me the effect I was going for.

Of course I tested everything, including their blushes. You can see my swatches and read my review of them here.

Even with professional help, it was hard choosing which shades should go into my palette. I’m a painfully indecisive person, but the staff were all so sweet and patient with me – well beyond what I would have been capable of if the shoe had been on the other foot! With their heip, I eventually decided on Ethereal Light for a “moonlit glow”, Dim Light to blur imperfections, and Mood Light to brighten my complexion.

Once my choice was finalised, I picked the order in which the colours should go and the staff set to work carefully gluing the pans of powder into a case. As you can see, they got the white glove treatment.

And that’s how my custom Hourglass Ambient Lighting palette came to be! If you’re into beauty and are as fanatical about customisation as I am, I highly recommend heading over to the Hourglass store the next time you’re in LA and checking out this neat service. No appointment is required and a custom palette costs $65 (plus tax).

I also picked up one of their limited edition blush palettes, which you can read more about here. These sold out everywhere really fast, but are likely to reappear during the holiday season this year. Fingers crossed!

Hourglass Flagship Store
1351 Abbot Kinney Blvd
Venice, California 90291
Phone: 310.392.3409