Aesthetica Strobe Series Illuminate Palette: Light to Medium

One of the best things about a surprise present gone right is knowing that someone knows you well enough to know how to gift you something you’ll love, even when you haven’t asked for it.

For Christmas 2016, among an armful of other gifts, my boyfriend gave me a highlighter palette as a sort of stocking stuffer, minus the stocking.  If you’ve read my past makeup posts, you’ll know I have a bit of an obsession with highlighters.  I know this, my sister knows this, my readers probably know this, but I was completely shocked to find that my boyfriend was attentive enough to know this.

On to the palette!

The Aesthetica Strobe Series Illuminate Palette comes in two shade series: light to medium and tan to dark, each with 4 highlighter shades.  The light to medium palette, pictured above, consists of the shades Halo, Brilliance, Sunset, and Glimmer.  Oddly, the packaging doesn’t indicate which shade is which, and my searches online to identify the shades proved to be fruitless.

Before using the palette for the first time, I had decided – simply based on the look of the shades – that the top left white shade would be good as a brow highlight, the top right golden shade as a cheek highlight, and perhaps the bottom two peachy shades as a blush rather than a highlight, since they seemed rather pigmented.

However, once I applied them to the skin, that all changed, and I was quite surprised…

The top right shade did prove to be a beautiful golden highlight that, dare I say, is reminiscent of my beloved Becca Shimmering Skin Perfector in Champagne Pop. Those of you who follow my blog probably know that I am obsessed with Champagne Pop, and that it has set the bar so high for me, that I have yet to find anything comparable.  I would say this top right shade is comparable in terms of color, though not in blendability (Champagne Pop is more blendable).

The two bottom shades were the ones that completely surprised me.  In the palette, they looked far too pink to be used as a highlighter on my skintone.  However, on the skin, they both worked beautifully as a highlighter.  The bottom left is a sheer, pearlescent, pinky highlight and the bottom right is a sheer, slightly darker pinky highlight.

The top left did prove to be a good brow highlighter, and was the only shade that I would not use as a cheek highlighter.  As a cheek highlighter, the white shade was a bit too light and striking against my skin tone.

I find that I like to apply my powder highlighters with flat blush brushes.  I have an e.l.f. blush brush that I use to apply my Champagne Pop.  As another “stocking stuffer,” my boyfriend threw in a set of EcoTools makeup brushes, one of which was a flat blush brush that I used to apply the Aesthetic highlighters.

The bottom half of the rightmost brush is the flat blush brush that I use to apply my highlighter.

I have been completely head over heels for this palette and have been reaching for it practically every single day since Christmas.  It’s funny how these were meant to be small side gifts to my main gift, but I ended up being so completely in love and obsessed with them!

I hope you enjoyed my wordy review!

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Thanks for reading!