Rant & Rave: Glitter Highlighter

Tell us what you love and hate about...

Glitter Highlighter

As long as it doesn’t travel EVERYWHERE within a few hours, I enjoy it! The other downside is sometimes if the particles are too sparse or too large, it can look like “dirt” on cheeks instead of glittery goodness.

— Christine

17 Comments

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Celesta Avatar

Generally, glitter highlighters tend to look dry on me, HOWEVER, now that I have the ND Bloom and Darya palettes and have been able to experiment with those more, I like glittery highlighter more because of how ND does her formula. If its a glossy highlight (my fave) with fine glitter in it, I’m a fan, since the glossiness of the highlighter makes my skin look more smooth and dewy. ABH highlighters, for example, aren’t glossy enough for my liking so the dryness of the powder + glitter just emphasizes pores and fine lines more for me.

Sam Avatar

I’ve slowly liked glitter highlighters less as the products started incorporating paler base shades. My favorite glitter highlighters were from the ABH Nicole Guierrero palette. The Daydream shade is my favorite since it was a unique color that was still flattering on my warm-tan skin tone. The other colorful shades in the palette like Kitty-Kat were great to use as a blush/highlight subsitute. Unfortunately, ABH’s Dream Glow Kit, pictured, seems too pale and neon. A relative gifted me the KVD Fetish blush and highlight palette which also has a shade that’s an orange based glitter highlighter, but that one is really vibrant and doesn’t have a strong base shade so the glitters are more obvious.

Jane Avatar

Unless the glitter is super fine, I don’t care for glitter highlighters. I’ve just heard about a highlighter called “Halo” by an indie brand called Give Me Glow Cosmetics that reminds me of Fenty’s Diamond Bomb, but perhaps better and the swatch I saw of it is how I’d want a super highlighter to look and feel like…smooth as butter and wet-like without being wet. A uniform glitter experience, not flecks of glitter.

Nancy T Avatar

Hey, as long as it is smaller particles and lies FLAT on skin, I’m game! I suppose that this is why I still wear them at 60 years old. Plus, it’s easier to pull off than some very metallic highlighters that can emphasize the beginnings of fine lines near my eyes up high on my cheekbones when I smile. Refined glitter doesn’t do that!

Deborah S. Avatar

I don’t really have any raves. Glitter in my highlighter never worked for me and has worked less and less as I get older. I do love glitter and/or shimmer everywhere else, though. In practice, I have even stopped using highlighter, pretty much. The tops of my cheeks are where I have hyperpigmentation and putting highlighter over it and buffing it in disrupts my base underneath and while nothing completely hides the pigmentation, buffing over it really takes the coverage away.

Deborah S. Avatar

No, I haven’t tried buffing with my finger. I mean I have tapped product on top but have never tried to really get it to meld into the skin to get the right look. I guess I always just figured that any type of buffing would result in decreased coverage and/or displacement of my base products. I will give it a try though. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, as they say. Thank you for the suggestion.

Lauren Avatar

I’m not into looking like a disco ball or having someone say “oh, you have some glitter on your face let me get that”. If the glitter is more of a micro shimmer and not glaringly glittery then it can be appealing… but straight up glitter chunks on the cheeks is not my style unless it is for a costume in which case the more glitter the merrier 🙂

Mary Avatar

I don’t mind a little fine glitter on the high point of my eye lids , but on my upper cheek bones , it just always looks like it emphasizes texture.
I prefer very fine shimmer , I want my skin to look healthy and gleamy .
In editorials it looks beautiful with that “wet” skin flush especially Tom Ford , but on me not in real life .

Carmen Avatar

I love a good glittery highlighter as long as long as the formula isn’t a super dry one. I got a pressed powder highlighter palette not long ago and the formula is so dry that it’s just fall out city on my face. It’s pretty but even I don’t want my highlighter shedding like there’s no tomorrow lol.

Alecto Avatar

Love: Nothing. Hate: Everything. And always — ALWAYS! — disappointed to discover that a highlighter people have raved about is glittery, even when the reviews swear it isn’t; I think I have a lower tolerance for sparkly than most, so things look glittery to me when they don’t to others.

Zaza Avatar

I have started to like them recently and I am now looking for singles or smaller palettes of glittery highlighters. I found that really buffing them into the skin really makes them look good on me

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