The hype for highlighters, liquid or powder, still hasn’t gone away and I don’t think it ever will because who doesn’t love looking like a glowing goddess?

Highlighters were most pervasive among luxurious brands, the most popular to date being the Becca Shimmering Skin Perfectors, which I’ve reviewed here, and the Kevyn Aucoin Celestial Skin, which I’ve mentioned here. However, cheaper brands have recently jumped in on the highlighter bandwagon and released powder and liquid highlighters – L’Oreal’s being one of the most talked about ones.

So now that drugstore brands have entered the highlighter market, is it necessary for us to spend extra money for luxurious or high end ones?

Check out my L’Oreal Lumi Liquid Glow Illuminator review below.

(Review for the L’Oreal Lumi Magique Primer will be added into this same post really soon!)

Shades

These liquid illuminators come in three shades:

1. W101 (W for warm undertones) Golden
2. N201 (N for neutral undertones) Rose
3. C301 (C for cool undertones) Ice

So they’ve made it easier for us to determine which shade would work best for our skin’s undertone!

Check out the swatches under different natural light intensities below:

W101 Golden

This is probably the most unique shade out of them all – it is pure gold. Literally.

Plus a gorgeous metallic sheen finish.

In the swatches above, I’ve only applied a small amount (the amount I would usually apply to my cheeks) and blended it out as usual, and you can still see the golden tints peeking through, which is gorgeous. If you apply too much you’d risk making it look too yellow.

N201 Rose

This is a light, rosy pink shade with flecks of shimmer. However, when blended out it ends up looking much more orange that it reminds me of the Becca’s Shimmering Skin Perfector in Blushed Copper, which I’ve reviewed here. Blushed Copper is much darker and more intense though.

This seems to be the darkest shade out of them all, so I think people with all skintones would be able to pull this off.

People with very fair skin have to be careful not too overapply though. This would make a nice base for a matte blush!

C301 Ice

The coolest and iciest of them all is the shade Ice. It looks very icy white, but when blended out I was able to see hints of pink and warm, golden shimmers.

Even though I have neutral-warm undertones, I was still able to pull this off. Such a gorgeous shade!

Packaging

These come in a small tube packaging with a rose gold/copper twist cap. For a drugstore item, I think the packaging is beautiful and sturdy.

Application

Application can be a pain in the bum TBH. Maybe I’m just used to the smoothness of high end liquid highlighters?

Every time I try to apply this with a brush, it ends up sticking to the brush and only 5% of the product ends up on my face – but patchy. So I’ve been using my fingers, but even with my fingers I find that if I blend too much, the product will actually disappear. YES, disappear.

So I have to blend these very lighthandedly. I actually prefer dabbing them on rather than massaging them in circular motions to blend them. These also dry out so fast, so you have to blend and dab pretty quickly. Once properly applied, they do look gorgeous!

The instructions at the back says these can be used all over the face or even around the eyes. I personally don’t think the Rose and Gold shades would be suitable for those purposes. You don’t want to have a reddish copper face, right? Yikes!

Longevity

This is another aspect where I find these a bit “meh…” because sometimes they could last up to 8 hours, sometimes much less than that. The shimmers would often disappear by the fourth hour though. If I wanted it to last longer, I would have to build up the intensity when I first apply it, but that would mean making my face look like a disco ball to begin with. Not a good look.

So I’ve just been layering another powder highlighter (usually anything from Becca) on top of this to make them seem to last longer.

But lately I’ve been using these a lot on natural, no-makeup makeup look days!

Price

These normally retail for US$12.99 at drugstores, but I got these during a “Buy 1 Get 1 50% Off” promotion at Walgreen’s. For a drugstore product, these are pretty pricey though. I would probably rather pay twice as much for a smoother, more long-lasting highlighter like the Becca or Kevyn Aucoin ones. Or even Benefit!

As for their availability in Australia, I still have no idea when they’re going to be releasing these.

Final Verdict

For those of you looking for a drugstore and affordable liquid highlighter, these are good options, but I honestly have to warn you not to expect these to have the results higher end liquid highlighters would give. I love that they have three color options though!

For drugstore highlighters I would actually rate this a 4/5. It’s pretty darn amazing for the price! (Although they would probably be around a 3.5/5 when compared to higher end ones).

Have you ever tried any of these? Let me know what you think!

PS: L’Oreal Lumi Magique Primer review coming soon – it’ll be added into this post! 😉