I tried out the ‘only use highlighter’ make-up challenge

I love highlighter. I love the way it makes me look like I have cheekbones, the way it makes my skin look dewy and beautiful, but most importantly, I like the way it looks. While scrolling through Instagram at an unreasonable hour I came across makeup babe ‘charmiejanee’, who was doing the ‘highlighter challenge’.

As someone who loves makeup more than life itself, I was hooked, scrolling through the tag for a good 30 minutes, wondering how these girls (and a lot of guys) pulled it off. Eventually, I decided to try it for myself. It was horribly daunting. Here’s what happened.

Step one – foundation: 

This was the thing I was most scared of. How in god’s name was I going to cover my dark circles, using only highlighter? The product I settled on was L.A. Girl Highlighter stick.

As you can see, it actually turned out OK, although I could have done with a little bit more coverage. I kind of felt like I was cheating a little bit, as the stick wasn’t exactly the brightest of highlighters, it’s actually quite matte. 

Step two – eyes: 

The next challenge was a biggie: eyeshadow. This seemed like the easiest element, as I mostly wear really sparkly eyeshadow any way. For this I chose my colour evolution palette. I love this palette, but I only ever really use two colours from it, so I decided to go with some of the ones I didn’t use just to change things up a bit.

I choose the gold colour and the pink one. It came out seriously darker than I imagined and I was a little shocked but I powered on through. I was beginning to look too sparkly for real life.

Step three – contour: 

How was I going to contour with highlighter? Like seriously, I have to wear this makeup all day, I need to define my cheekbones so my face doesn’t look so fat. It went against everything I believed in, and I have no problem admitting I was ready to give up. As someone who prides themselves on having good makeup, the idea of spending a day with a dodgy contour scared and confused me. In the end I took a leap of faith, and used my mac mineralize skin finish in golden sunset.

While I didn’t look like my cheekbones had been carved by God, it actually worked out really well. To highlight – because sure, there hasn’t been enough of that already – I used the Anastasia Beverly Hills glow kit which I love more than anything in the world right now.

It is my baby and my first born.

Step four – lips: 

By this point I was feeling my look. I had been worried that I was going to look like an alien, but I quickly let that one go. For lips I used my Nars Orgasm highlighter blush.

It actually worked out quite well and I didn’t look silly at all.

The finished product

Overall, it seriously went better than expected and I feel like my life has changed for the better. No longer will I just use highlighter for my cheekbones but rather I will experiment and get out of my comfort zone. Although, I would not recommend this if you are doing anything serious at all. You will look too shiny to be taken seriously.