In today’s edition of The Highlighter Chronicles (because that’s kind of what this is turning into) I thought I’d give everyone’s bank accounts a break and review some drugstore highlighters for a change. Introducing Sonia Kashuk’s Chic Luminosity Highlighter Stick in Sparkling Sands and Physician’s Formula Mineral Glow Pearls in Light Bronze Pearl:
For the record, I love drugstore makeup. Not only is it affordable, but I’ve found that the variety and quality of products has skyrocketed in the last few years – enough to sometimes make me second guess my high end makeup purchases.
I’d been wanting to try Sparkling Sands for a while as I heard it was a good dupe for Benefit’s Watts Up, but oh lord it’s hard to find! It keeps selling out at Target, so when I finally found one the other day I may or may not have done a happy dance in the makeup aisle.
I really liked how easy this was to use – all I had to do was draw stripes over my cheekbones and blended a bit with my fingers. The cream to powder formula was nice and lightweight, and once blended out, the gold-champagne colour had a very natural finish on my skin.
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That said, it was a bit *too* natural to show up well on my cupid’s bow and in the inner corners of my eyes. It also had a slight plasticky smell to it, so it’s probably best as a brow/cheekbone highlight only.
Because I have zero restraint, I decided to layer my Light Bronze Pearl powder on top to see what would happen. Spoiler alert: it blew me away.
Physician’s Formula is one of my favourite drugstore brands, because I’ve yet to be disappointed by anything of theirs I’ve purchased. This stuff however did more than not disappoint – it exceeded all my expectations.
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On top of being a very pretty colour (similar to MAC’s Mineralize Skin Finish in Soft and Gentle) this also had the loveliest blurring effect on my skin.
It melded all the colours of my highlighter, blush and foundation together seamlessly and gave my face kind of a soft-focus glow. It actually reminded me of Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powders, though this was less finely milled and had more of a noticeable shimmer.
Overall, These products gave me a natural-looking glow which I really liked. If I had to pick between the two, I’d recommend the Light Bronze Pearl powder because I find it gave me similar results to my high end finishing powders…but at drugstore prices.
I hope this helped anyone out there looking for inexpensive highlighter options. Stay tuned for more of my highlighter chronicles…including a part two to this drugstore post!
