Debuting in January, Guerlain Cruel Gardenia Meteorites ($67.00 for 0.31 oz.) is a limited edition highlighter than can be used to highlight specific areas or as an all-over glow. It delivers a light pink with neutral-warm undertones with a shimmer-sheen. It reminded me of a lighter, pinker version of MAC Crystal Pink. Chanel Beiges Ombres Tissees is lighter, more beige/white. MAC Light Sunshine is more similar in color but is a bit lighter and has more of a sheen than shimmer.
It looked rather frosty when I swatched it on my arm, but it worked well when I applied it with a brush on my cheek bones to test out the wear. There’s no emphasis of pores, and there’s enough glow and sheen to perk up the face without looking like a disco ball. This is more shimmery than other pressed meteorites in my experience but not by much. I was really happy with the wear, which is really what I liked most about the product, which was ten hours undisturbed. No breaking up, migration, or looking like it was worse for the wear .It didn’t have the typical Guerlain violet scent; there’s a lingering scent, but it’s very, very subtle–I practically had my nose buried in the gardenia! When I finally caught the scent, it smelled a little soapy. It’s supposed to be Cruel Gardenia, though.
The powder is finely milled but dense and firm, which is why it doesn’t turn frosty on the face–the brush picks up the right amount of product. Sometimes a product can be too soft, like when you put your brush to the powder, it loosens a ton of product (more than you need), which can be wasteful. Nevertheless, it’s more of a sheen and shimmer than Parure de Nuit from fall.
BritishBeautyBlogger has an excellent write-up about how/why products can be similar (and looking at these two particular products). Industry insiders know that products are often planned at least one to two years in advance; often, the conceptual phase is 18-24 months out, while prototype production can begin a year or further out from launch–products have to move through various stages like creation, testing, reformulation, production, etc. Color agencies like Pantone often determine the trends we’ll see in upcoming months, so some similarities are entirely coincidental or par for the course.
Design similarity aside, though, the two don’t really compare in the way that matters–color. Cruel Gardenia is distinctly pink, and it will do more to flatter cooler complexions (but it is equally flattering on warmer complexions, because it’s a neutral pink), compared to the more bronzy Rose Rendezvous by Laura Mercier. I wanted to review Laura Mercier’s, but unfortunately, by the time I received my order from Nordstrom (boo, ground shipping!) and tested it (seriously, I photographed and started testing immediately after it arrived), it was sold out.
If you've been looking for a way to add a little glow and shimmer to the face and never have to worry about overdoing it, the texture of this product makes both of those things easy to achieve. Those who loved the feel and texture of Laura Mercier's Rose Rendezvous will likely love this one, too, and it's nice that they don't resemble each other in hue.
Product
9.5/10
Pigmentation
9.5/10
Texture
9.5/10
Longevity
10/10
Application
4.5/5
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Where to Buy
This product can be purchased at the following retailers:
January 2012 at Guerlain counters, $67
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theBalm Balmbini Vol. 2 Palette ($28.00 for 0.59 oz.) is a limited edition follow up to Vol. 1 (which is still available, but I don’t have it and haven’t seen it myself). It includes one highlighter, four eyeshadows (or liners), lip/cheek color, and a lipgloss.
As other theBalm products are packaged, this one is also in cardboard packaging with a full-sized mirror on the interior of the lid. The palette opens about two-thirds of the way down so that one side covers or reveals the powder products and the other side covers or reveals the cream products–this is a really nice feature, because it helps to limit any loose powder from contaminating the cream products. It contains a good amount of product and is a good value overall.
Promiscuous Pearl is a pale beige with champagne shimmer. It adds a soft glow on cheeks without being overwhelming. If you like Mary Lou-manizer, you’d like this one, just as a more neutral version. The texture is still really buttery and soft, so it is blendable and finely-milled and doesn’t emphasize pores. It reminded me of Chanel Beiges Ombres Tissees.
Jinxy Jasmyne is a sooty black that looks morre intense in the pan than it does on the skin. It has a mostly matte finish, but it’s rather dry and ends up being chalky and uneven. When applied, it can easily darken the crease, but you really need to use a fluffy brush (remember to tap off any excess!) to make this one work. Application is better with a damp brush, like one might use if you were to use it as an eyeliner. It’s similar to a lot of matte blacks, like MAC Carbon.
Open to Offers Olwen is a muted teal-blue shot through with silvery-blue shimmer. This shade is also in the Shady Lady Vol. 3 palette. It has good color payoff and a dense, buttery texture. Inglot #413 is a bit lighter but similar.
Strawberry is a poppy red that can be applied opaque or blended out for a sheerer look. On lips, it’s much pinker–more like a slightly coral-pink with a creamy finish. The color coverage is mostly opaque. It’s not as dark as MAC Ultra Darling. NARS Niagara is more coral. It’s pretty close to Bobbi Brown Pink.
Nude is an opaque beige nude with a cream finish. MAC C-Thru is similar in color, but this is much more opaque.
It’s not my favorite palette by theBalm; I think it has promise and potential, but it’s not fully there. The color combination is off for me–this is not a palette that lends itself to a lot of versatility. I feel like you really need to pull in products from your stash to make the palette really pop. The cheek/lip color is pretty but vibrant enough that it doesn’t pair well with the eyeshadows. I was disappointed in the texture and payoff of Jinxy Jasmyne and Lavish Latoya was just slightly under-performing. Shades like Manic Maribel and Lavish Latoya are found in a lot of brands, so this wouldn’t be a palette for long-time beauty aficionados. As a face palette, I’d have liked to see a powder blush, rather than a mega-sized black eyeshadow.
The overall quality of the palette is there, but the color combination doesn't resonate as well with me--as a face palette, it needs more in the cheek department; it's too eye-heavy.
Product
8.5/10
Pigmentation
9/10
Texture
9/10
Longevity
9/10
Application
4/5
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Where to Buy
This product can be purchased at the following retailers:
Sometimes products are discontinued or limited edition, which means that a product may no longer be available at one or more retailers so you may need to shop around for those hard-to-find shades! We try to update products as they become discontinued, and if you discover a product has been discontinued, please help us help others by letting us know.
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Bobbi brown Party Shimmer Brick ($40.00 for 0.24 oz.) is a limited edition highlighter for the holidays that uses a combination of gold and “silver.” Though the right side of the compact is certainly not the gold we typically think of, it’s not exactly silver–more like a cool-toned gold.
The left side is a true yellow gold with a shimmer-sheen. I couldn’t think of other highlighters that were similar in color, though there are likely half a dozen eyeshadows! It has good intensity for a highlighter; you can build-it up if you really wanted something more opaque, but it’s soft and blendable. Though the finish isn’t overly metallic, it does emphasize pores (or skin unevenness) a bit. The right side is a more like a cool-toned white with a neutral yellow shimmer-sheen, so it comes off as this cool-toned white gold. It has a more metallic finish than the yellowy side, which is a finish that tends to emphasize pores (and this does do so moderately).
Overall, it’s as frosted as most Bobbi Brown Shimmer Bricks are. It’s not unlike previous iterations, so for those who are fans of Shimmer Bricks (and I know there are a number of you!), it’s par for the course. They can be used together or separately, which is nice–especially because the powder is halved, rather than split into four or five strips of colors, so you can actually just use one shade at a time. The wear of this is good; it wore for seven hours well, and then at the eight hour mark, it was visibly diminished but still lingering.
If you like subtle highlighters, this is probably not the right holiday highlighter for you, but if you love more intense highlighters that have more of a frost/metallic shimmer and sheen, this is right up your alley.
Product
8.5/10
Pigmentation
9/10
Texture
9/10
Longevity
8/10
Application
4/5
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Where to Buy
This product can be purchased at the following retailers:
Sometimes products are discontinued or limited edition, which means that a product may no longer be available at one or more retailers so you may need to shop around for those hard-to-find shades! We try to update products as they become discontinued, and if you discover a product has been discontinued, please help us help others by letting us know.
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Benefit Watt’s Up! ($30.00 for 0.33 oz.) is a “champagne” hued cream-to-powder highlighter that’s designed to work on all complexions. Benefit suggests applying it to cheek and brow bones and use the soft blender to sculpt and blend out the protect. It can be used on its own or over existing makeup.
It’s a shimmered champagne beige that almost seems like it’ll be too much, but once it’s blended out, it results in a beautiful, glowy sheen that’s luminous and lit-from-within. It sits on top of makeup well without looking heavy or caky, though it certainly works well against the natural skin. The consistency is creamy without being thick or greasy; it has enough glide to apply without bunching up in places, but it stays where you put it.
I like blending out the product with fingertips, but the included applicator (on the other end of the tube, which feels like a plush sponge) will work, too. I’m just wary of washing it, but it would do in a pinch, and I think it smears around any underlying makeup. I was really pleased with the wear, because it lasted for a full eight hours and didn’t settle into pores or look uneven after a long day.
Benefit's latest highlighter really impresses--it delivers a luminous glow that looks natural, soft, and effortless... because it is as close to effortless as one can get! The creaminess makes it easy to apply and blend, while the cream-to-powder finish delivers good wear.
Product
10/10
Pigmentation
10/10
Texture
10/10
Longevity
9/10
Application
5/5
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Where to Buy
This product can be purchased at the following retailers:
Sometimes products are discontinued or limited edition, which means that a product may no longer be available at one or more retailers so you may need to shop around for those hard-to-find shades! We try to update products as they become discontinued, and if you discover a product has been discontinued, please help us help others by letting us know.
Disclosure: Temptalia uses affiliate links, which give us a small commission when you make a purchase (given to us by the retailer, at no cost to you). Your purchases help to support the site!
MAC Glitter & Ice Beauty Powders ($24.00 for 0.35 oz. each) include two, limited edition shades: How Beautiful! (pale shimmering beige) and Snowglobe (frosty pink beige). The collection is slated to hit stores on October 27th. Beauty powders are soft, sheer to semi-sheer products that can be used on the face as a highlighter or finishing powder, but occasionally they’ll be pigmented enough (or your skin tone may be light enough) for them to be used as a bronzer/blusher. The two featured in this launch lend themselves more as highlighters, even on lighter complexions.
How Beautiful! is a light-medium beige-bronze with a satiny shimmer-sheen. It’s warmer and less frosted compared to MAC Belightful. It’s very, very sheer. It may be a subtle bronzer on the most porcelain of skin tones, but even that may be a stretch. My arm, which is around NC20, barely shows the product once it is blended out. It’s a nice way to add a hint of warmth (without being orange or gold) to the skin, and the sheerness should allow for easy application for both cool and warm skin tones. I will caution that on medium to dark skin tones, the effect is minimal, so you may prefer something with more oomph.
Snowglobe is a pale pink-white with a satiny shimmer-sheen. It’s even sheerer than How Beautiful! because even the heavy swatch looks sheer. It’s pinker than MAC Lightscapade but lighter than MAC Light Sunshine. The upside of something this sheer is that despite its overall paleness in color, it doesn’t appear chalky or powdery, just because there is little product to be seen. It’s not too cool-toned that it cannot be worn by warmer complexions, and even if it leaned that way, the sheerness makes it fuss-free no matter the tone. I could see this working as a light finishing powder on paler beauties.
Both of them had soft textures that leaned on the drier side, but this seemed to be minimized when applied with a brush. The packaging is a glossy white with silver lettering, and inside the compact is a full-sized mirror. I was only able to achieve six hours of good wear with these, but by the eighth hour, most of the product had disappeared.
The major issue with this product was the shorter wear time, which isn't even a full work day (or school day)! The texture could be a smidgen softer to enable more product to loosen and be applied, so perhaps it would become more buildable. I felt like I had to really layer it on to get it to show on my skin tone.
Product
9/10
Pigmentation
8.5/10
Texture
9/10
Longevity
8/10
Application
4/5
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Where to Buy
This product can be purchased at the following retailers:
Sometimes products are discontinued or limited edition, which means that a product may no longer be available at one or more retailers so you may need to shop around for those hard-to-find shades! We try to update products as they become discontinued, and if you discover a product has been discontinued, please help us help others by letting us know.
Disclosure: Temptalia uses affiliate links, which give us a small commission when you make a purchase (given to us by the retailer, at no cost to you). Your purchases help to support the site!
Chanel Lumiere Sculptee de Chanel Highlighting Powder
Chanel Lumiere Sculptee de Chanel Highlighting Powder
Chanel Lumiere Sculptee de Chanel Highlighting Powder ($72.00 for 0.46 oz.) is an intricately embossed illumatinating powder that “gently highlights the skin with a sheer blend of tender pink and pearlescence.” Of all the products I purchased from the holiday collection, I figured this was the one readers would be most interested in.
On me, it swatches as a pale beige with a soft shimmer and sheen–but it’s so light against my skin tone that it reads powdery. It applies much lighter than it looks in the pan. When applied on cheek bones, I felt the powderiness of the product was further emphasized. I had to use either an extremely light hand and barely dust on product or blend, blend, blend it away so it looked less ghost-like. It catches the light well and seems to photograph better than it looks in real life, which emphasizes my pore size and just seems to sit on the top of skin, rather than really melt into it.
For lighter complexions, it would work better–as compared to my medium skin tone–because it will be similar to your natural skin tone and will highlight without lightening. I don’t like the powdery, almost chalky appearance it has on my skin. It wore for six hours before beginning to fade, and by the eighth hour, it was no longer noticeable.
The powder itself is soft and finely-milled, though the larger shimmer is merely an overlay, so underneath is a more refined, less shimmery, more sheen kind of finish. Because of the silkiness in texture, it is easy to blend but just doesn’t seem to lay as well on the skin as other Chanel powder products have in the past. It’s soft but powdery and kicks up a fair amount of excess product when you go to use it.
The texture of this may be soft, but it's also powdery and looks that way on the skin. Despite the fine shimmer and sheen, it emphasized the pores on my cheeks.
Product
8.5/10
Pigmentation
9/10
Texture
7.5/10
Longevity
7/10
Application
4/5
Login or Register to be able to add this to your Vanity or Wishlist! Plus rate and review!
Where to Buy
This product can be purchased at the following retailers:
Sometimes products are discontinued or limited edition, which means that a product may no longer be available at one or more retailers so you may need to shop around for those hard-to-find shades! We try to update products as they become discontinued, and if you discover a product has been discontinued, please help us help others by letting us know.
Disclosure: Temptalia uses affiliate links, which give us a small commission when you make a purchase (given to us by the retailer, at no cost to you). Your purchases help to support the site!
