Urban Decay Aura Naked Illuminated Shimmering Powder ($29.00 for 0.20 oz.) is described as a “soft pink shimmer with golden iridescent sparkle.” It’s a pink-peach with a golden shimmer-sheen with larger gold sparkle and a frosted, slightly metallic, sheen. Tom Ford Beauty Highlighter (Softcore) (LE, $55.00) is lighter, less sparkly. Urban Decay Streak Highlighter (P) is pinker, finre shimmer. bareMinerals The Many Splendors #2 (LE) is less sparkly. MAC Talk of the Town (LE, $27.00) is darker swatched but looks similar applied. Le Metier de Beaute Whisper (P, $30.00) is less sparkly. See comparison swatches / view dupes.

Like the original (now called Luminous, this has an abundance of sparkle and a more metallic finish. I’m always surprised that it doesn’t create hyper-awareness of pores, just because it looks like a glitter-fest in the pan and when swatched, but I think that a lot of the sparkle gets trapped between the bristles of the brush (both the included one, hidden underneath the powder that Urban Decay created as well as any brush I use from my own stash) so less makes it onto the face. It does slightly emphasize pores even with a light application. It had semi-opaque color coverage with a very finely-milled and silky texture, but it was powder, so despite seeming to have a lot of payoff, only some of it adheres to the skin (the rest blends away, you could even just blow it away). There is a lot of excess powder that gets kicked up the moment anything touches the surface of the powder. You may want to use a stippling or less dense brush with this, as a brush picks up more product than most will probably want applied, given how metallic the finish runs. The sparkle is mostly visible in the sunlight, where the light reflects and catches on it, but it’s more of a frosted sheen under most lighting conditions. It wore well for seven hours on me before it started to fade. It has the same suede-like exterior packaging as the original release.

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Urban Decay Aura Naked Illuminated Shimmering Powder

Urban Decay Aura Naked Illuminated Shimmering Powder

Urban Decay Aura Naked Illuminated Shimmering Powder

Urban Decay Aura Naked Illuminated Shimmering Powder

Urban Decay Aura Naked Illuminated Shimmering Powder

Urban Decay Aura Naked Illuminated Shimmering Powder

Urban Decay Aura Naked Illuminated Shimmering Powder