Physician's Formula Product Reviews The Highlighter Chronicles

the highlighter chronicles: drugstore picks (part 1)

March 24, 2015

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:

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!