Chromaluxe Hi-Lite Cream

It's supposed to be a "gel-cream highlighter" that has a "glittering effect" that can be used on eyes and face. The brand says the formula can be applied with "finger or a brush" and has "full coverage" and "lasting wear." When the application goes well, they produce a sparkling, glittering effect that twinkles and reflects light, but the difficulty is in getting the application down, which I found to be inconsistent.

First and foremost, I had issues with both tubes pushing out product when initially opened. I tried unrolling the end of the second tube I opened to see if that helped, but it actually made it worse (two to three inches worth of product sputtered forth!). I didn't experience issues with the product continuously pouring out of the tube on subsequent openings. The tubes are on the smaller side (and explain the seemingly "low" price initially) and are more in line with the amount you'd expect for an eye product compared to a cheek product.

The brand recommended to apply with a "flat brush or fingertip" for highlighting the eyes; "brush or fingertips" for the face; and "fingertip" or "fluffy brush" for highlighting the cupid's bow (for lips). My personal experience found that they applied best with fluffier, synthetic brushes or fingertips over flat, firmer synthetic brushes, which seemed to push product around rather than diffuse it.

The product has much larger sparkles and micro-glitters in it (and doesn't contain any plastic glitter from what I saw in the ingredient list), so if you loathe glitter or more textured finishes, I'd skip and fine something with a more pearlescent finish instead. They were fairly pigmented and could be sheered out, and the nature of a cream-based product was that they tended to sheer out more than they did build up.

It has a creamy texture with a drier finish, especially as dries down and sets, to the point where too much blending post-dry down could result in product flaking off. For the most part, once applied and set, I didn't notice any fallout over time, and I had light creasing after eight hours of wear. They dry down fairly quickly, which was useful for working on my eyes but less desired no my cheeks. I felt like there was some lifting of base products when I patted the highlighters (with fingertips) on top of my complexion products, and on bare skin, they were slightly patchy and tended to emphasize my skin texture somewhat.

Both shades were smoother, more even, and less prone to emphasizing skin texture/lines when sheered out somewhat, and I would resist the urge to build up to avoid the texture becoming thick, uneven, and almost "cracked" in places (especially notice on my lid area).