Hourglass Ambient Lighting Palette

Every once in a while, I come across a product that exceeds all my expectations blows my mind away. This is one of those products. Please meet the Hourglass Ambient Lighting Palette, my new best friend.

My skin is far, far away from perfect. I still breakout once in a while, have bad acne scars on my cheeks and temples and over all rough texture. Any chance I get to try something that can help me enhance my complexion, give it a nice glow and take away the dullness, I take it.

Most of the time when I hear about a product that is overly popular and very much hyped about, I get a bit skeptical. That is why I was a bit hesitant to buy this palette. That, and its price: $58.00. As soon as I received my $20.00 Sephora VIB gift card few weeks a go, I knew right away what I was going to spend it on.

This is what Hourglass says about this product:

“Ambient Lighting Powder is a groundbreaking collection of finishing powders that capture, diffuse, and soften the way light reflects on skin. Unlike traditional powders, which merely cloak imperfections, Ambient Lighting Powder utilizes photoluminescent technology to filter out harsh light and refine the appearance of the complexion. The powders deliver a multidimensional luminescence to every skintone, making it appear softer and lit from within. The finishing powders enhance skin in any type of light, including flash photography. With three universal shades available in the Ambient palette, you can create any desired effect.”

The Ambient Lighting Palette comes in a sleek, mirrored compact. Three shades included in this palette are Dim Light, Incandescent Light and Radiant Light. Dim Light is a “natural peach beige powder that blurs imperfections and highlights the complexion“; Incandescent Light is an “opalescent pearl powder that brightens the complexion with a celestial glow“; Radiant Light is a “sun-kissed golden beige powder that enhances the complexion with believable, subtle warmth“.

Dim Light, Incandescent Light and Radiant Light. As you can see, Dim Light is such a perfect match for my skin tone that it’s barely visible, that’s how beautifully it blends in. Incandescent Light is gorgeous for subtle highlights, and Radiant Light is a perfect way to get that sublte, bronzed look. I always try to stay away from dark bronzers because they tend to make my skin look a bit blotchy and often enhance those deep acne scars that I have on my cheeks. It’s one of the main reasons for which I stay away from heavy contouring-it just doesn’t work for me and never looks natural on my skin. As soon as I applied Radiant Light in the hollows of my cheeks I fell in love. This shade just works great with my skin tone, it gives me a subtle contour that looks incredibly natural. One thing that I have to mention, is that even though these are compact powders, they are very delicate and fragile. These powders are not one of those powders where you can dip your brush in and swirl it while collecting the product. You have to be very careful as they act act almost the same way loose powders do. Definitely have to be gentle with these, otherwise you’ll end up wasting A LOT of product. Expensive product, at that.

All three blended together.

The Ambient Lighting Powders also come in individual packaging (0.35 oz $45.00 each) so this palette is a pretty nice way to try out all three. It’s also a great palette to take with you when traveling; it has everything you need to finish any makeup look. I actually don’t apply these directly on my foundation; I first set my foundation with a mattifying powder, then follow with this trio (that’s mainly because even though I have combo skin, most of the time it tends to get very oily). At first, I was afraid that all this product-layering can give me the cake-face effect, but nothing could be further from truth. The finish is still smooth and very much natural-looking.

Another reason for which I was hesitant about this purchase, was the fact that I wasn’t sure these shades would work with my light skin tone, but they work beautifully.

 I have these mega-bright mirror lights in our master bathroom that I always avoid using. Whenever I look in the mirror I always turn those lights off, because I just get so sad looking at my skin, with all its imperfections out in the open :D  (my husband always makes fun of me because of this, he keeps saying I act like a vampire that gets burned by sunlight lol ). When I wear these powders and go to the bathroom to wash my face at the end of the day, I first put the “vampire lights” on and just admire how beautifully my skin looks (once my face is washed I turned them off, before even looking in the mirror haha!). These powders are very unique, because they enhance the complexion in most unflattering lighting conditions. How awesome is that?

I think I’ll end it here, because I seriously could keep going on and on and on about this palette. I’m very, very impressed and definitely consider this to be one of the best makeup purchases I made this year. Love, love, love!