I received Josie Maran’s Argan Illuminizer as a Christmas present last year from a friend whom I now suspect is psychic. Grace: if you’re reading this, bravo for predicting my highlighter obsession!
To be honest, the first time I used this product I wasn’t entirely sold on it. I made the mistake of mixing it into my foundation, which I have since realised isn’t a method of application that suits my skin type. But now that I’m older and wiser and know what to do with highlighter, it’s definitely back in my good books.
The best way I can describe the Argan Illuminizer is to say it’s an extremely concentrated warm champagne highlighter. Though it’s a light colour and reflects super brightly, it blends out to be quite gold-toned and doesn’t have a white cast to it. This means that although it shows up dramatically on fair skin you could use it on medium and dark skin as well without it looking ashy. If I were a makeup artist, this is hands down the highlighter I’d have in my kit – it would look good on pretty much anyone!
As you can see here, it’s quite similar in shade to Becca’s Shimmering Skin Perfecter in Opal, but the shimmer particles aren’t as fine so it packs way more of a punch.
I actually started this look with Buxom’s Divine Goddess Luminizer, but just wasn’t feeling it. It has a very thin consistency, which made it all too easy to blend out into barely-there territory. It also dried very quickly, so I had to be fast and thorough with my blending, or risk visible edges to my highlighted areas. And now you know why I ended up over-blending! This is definitely something that needs to be mixed with a foundation rather than worn on its own, but if you don’t mind wearing your highlighters that way it does give a very natural, sheer golden glow.
