If you ever wonder how models and celebrities get a beautiful glow, it is highlighter! Highlighter is a great way to add a youthful glow to any makeup look. It grabs the light and reflecting it back bringing the places where highlighter is applied forward, creating dimension. 

Highlighter placement 

Where you apply your highlighter is the most important part of this makeup step. It is super easy when you see beautiful and shiny things to go overboard when applying them, but you want to be careful, so you don’t turn into the Tin Man. 

Highlighters should be placed on the high points of the face you want to be caught by the eye. Generally, highlighter is placed on the tops of the cheekbones, down the bridge of the middle of the nose, the tip of the nose, inner corner of an eye and on the brow bone. 

If you have texture on your cheeks, we would recommend avoiding putting an intense highlighter over it because the point of a highlighter is to draw attention to that portion of the face. If you still want highlight on the tops of your cheekbones we would recommend the Hourglass Ambient Lighting Finishing Powders. These are also a great option for a beautiful glow from within.

Highlighter application

When applying highlighter, you have a couple of different options when choosing the tool, brush, beauty sponge and fingers. Typically, for highlighting people chose between a standard looking brush that is a bit smaller, suited for your cheekbones, and a fan brush, which looks like a regular brush squashed like a pancake. When applying highlighter with a brush on the tips of the cheekbones try buffing the product in circular motions. When using a fan brush, just move it back and forth over the cheekbones.

Cream/liquid versus powder

Cream versus powder depends on how much you want to glow! Cream highlighters tend to give a more natural glow from within, but unfortunately, they don’t have the staying power of powder highlighters. For more of a glammed up glow that will last all day, powder highlighters are perfect.

Our recommendation for cream/liquid highlighter is Charlotte Tilbury Beauty Light Wand in Spotlight. For powder highlighter, we re
commend Dollup Beauty Lumie Highlighter in Lavish or Rose Gold.

*Pretty Pro Tip:  To intensify your powder highlighter, spray setting spray on your skin or brush before you apply it to the face. 

Highlight mistakes to avoid

One of the worst mistakes of highlighter you can do is applying too much because in reality you’ll look like the Tin Man and no one wants that. It is important to be sparing where you apply highlight, and if you want to an intense glow to build it up in the tips of the cheeks, brow bone, or tip of the nose. 

When using cream highlight, be careful not to let your cream highlighter lift the foundation under it, making it look patchy. This can be avoided by making sure there is always product on your tool while blending out the product, bare fingers and beauty sponges without product have been known to lift product already on the skin.

Picking the right highlight color can also be a mistake to avoid. It is very easy for highlighters to turn a grey tone when you’re being looked at from straight on. To avoid grey-looking highlighter, choose one to two tones lighter than your skin tone. It is also important to take into consideration your skin tone when picking highlighters, applying an icy highlighter on warm-toned skin won’t create the prettiest result, not to mention it might look a bit off. 

*Pretty Pro Tip: For a quick reference:

• Fair skin tones -> highlighters in pearlescent and champagne shades
• Medium and olive skin tones -> highlighters in gold and bronze shades
• Dark skin tones -> highlighters in bronze and rose gold shades