Sometimes (OK often), you scroll across a beauty product that is just to perfect not to buy: affordable, pretty AND you see yourself using it regularly. This Sleek makeup highlighting palette in Solstice was one of those items. I threw it in my basket when I ordered Ghoulish at Beauty & Bobs because I felt like it was time I updated my highlighting routine. Since I had been using the highlighter from my Sleek Face Form kit so much, I felt like I would not be disappointed by sticking with Sleek.
First things first: the ease of messing it up with greasy fingers aside, the packaging of the Sleek Solstice palette is completely stunning for a budget brand. A beautiful warm gold metallic case with magnetic closure, eye candy!
And it only gets better when you click it open. A big mirror, and four completely different highlighting products to play around with. The colours are absolutely gorgeous together, I could even use these for interior decorating inspiration!
Solstice contains four different highlighters: Ecliptic, which is a shimmery, rosey beige cream highlighter; Hemisphere, a baked highlighter in lilac with a frosty finish; Equinox, another baked highlighter which is peachy but with a neutral toned shimmer, keeping it from becoming too warm; and Subsolar, a finely milled, ultra soft powder highlighter in pastel yellow, containing a subtle amount of micro glitter. The brush is crap of course, but whatever: you can use your fingers to apply these highlighters, or your preferred brush (I like a slanted highlighter brush)
I did my best not to build up the swatches too much, because these are not meant to be worn thick and layered on but as a sheer wash of brightness to those areas of your face (or body) that you want to catch some light. These swatches are on the back of my hand, which is an entirely different effect versus when you see them on the face (where they are meant to be used), so let's move on to a more informative demo of their quality.
You can use each of these wherever you like, because the palette is really versatile and the effect you get from the different highlighters is similar, but there are subtle differences which led me to apply them as such:
- Hemisphere, the lilac baked highlighter which has the strongest highlighting effect because of its colour, on the cheekbones and in the inner eyecorners
- Equinox, the peachy baked highlighter, on the brow bone
- Subsular, the pastel yellow glittery highlighter that has the most "neutral" colour when applied to the skin, along the bridge of the nose
- Ecliptic, the cream highlighter, dabbed on the cupid's bow (top of lip).
Like I said: any of these could serve any of these functions but I like my cheekbone and inner eyecorner highlight to be the strongest (-> Hemisphere), my cupid's bow highlighter to be a cream because that works best with lipsticks etc (-> Ecliptic), and my nose bridge highlighter to be the most subtle (-> Subsolar). Equinox is the most versatile out of all the highlighters if you ask me, so the reason I used it on the brow bone is mostly because all the others already had a "preferred" application area.
What I did here is basically that whole strobing thing that is so trendy right now, being touted as "the new contouring". Which I think is kind of silly because contouring ALSO includes highlighting if you do it right, but whatever. Highlighting is definitely the easiest, most wearable makeup technique that makes a huge difference, yet most makeup beginners have no idea about highlighter existing, let alone being worth the trouble of adding yet another step to your makeup routine. Let me assure you: highlighting is EVERYTHING. It's basically impossible to screw highlighting up, it takes about ten seconds, and it instantly brightens up your face and makes your skin look more healthy.
As you can see, my face just catches and reflects more light, making it seem more open, more awake. I'm super happy I bought the Solstice highlighting palette because it's gorgeous and does everything I want it to do. If you're from Belgium, you can order yours for €13,49 at Beauty & Bobs. They have a very quick and affordable delivery service. I promise you won't be disappointed!
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