6 Best Highlighters for Glowing Skin

Hiya guys, I hope you’re having a good week! Today I’m sharing the 6 Best Highlighters so you can look glowing and radiant all day long!

I’ve got a liquid highlighter, a couple of baked ones and some traditional powder highlighters to share. I’ve also tried to make sure I’ve covered all budgets. I love a good highlighter and I’ve tried so many over the years. Some I find are overhyped, some underhyped. Some blinding, some more subtle. It was quite difficult to narrow it down to 6. I tried to get it down to the Top 5, but I just couldn’t!

The reason I wanted to share the 6 Best Highlighters with you is because I recently bought Chantecaille’s Liquid Lumiere in Sheen and my goodness. What a glorious product!

It’s made me want to try lots more liquid highlighters, until the last year or so, I only used powdered highlighters. However, the other liquid highlighters I’ve tried are nothing on the Chantecaille one!

Without further ado, let’s get into The 6 Best Highlighters for glowing skin!

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Maybelline Face Studio Master Chrome Metallic Highlighter – £8.99 from Look Fantastic

These are the most budget friendly highlighters in this round up. However, I feel like they perform like high end highlighters. They are soft, buttery, smooth and so easy to blend. These can really be a blinding highlight. It is possible to sheer them out, but you will need the lightest tap of product. I’ve got three shades; Diamond Glow, Sandstone Shimmer and Molten Rose Gold. They are all beautiful and the formula is consistent between all three.

These can give a metallic, foiled look. They are really impressive. There are 5 shades in the range and the shades vary from bronze, to rose gold to champagne. The packaging of this highlighter does feel pretty lightweight, but it is only £9. You’ll probably be able to get it for less too, as drugstore makeup is always on offer somewhere.

Even though this highlighter can be intense, it manages to not emphasise texture too much. It glides over the skin and blends seamlessly. I like to use a small, tapered face brush to apply to the tops of my cheeks.

Milani Baked Highlighter – £14.75 from Beauty Bay

Milani is one of the best drugstore brands in my opinion and they’re totally underrated. This is the first of two highlighter formulas I’ll be mentioning in my 6 Best Highlighters. The other one is a traditional powder, but this one is baked.

Baked highlighters are often softer and not as metallic. They feel slightly harder when you swirl a finger in and you can’t always see a tonne of pick up on your brush. This is a more natural highlighter. Again, it doesn’t emphasise texture and glides straight over the skin. You will look lit from within and like your skin always look so healthy and radiant!

I have the shade Dolce Perla which is a slightly pink hued light highlighter. It’s perfect for my pale skin, but also doesn’t pull too pink on the skin. It looks cool toned in the pan, but once I apply it, it pulls more neutral. I love how soft the glow is from this highlighter and it is somewhat buildable. You won’t get wet looking foiled cheeks, but you can layer this product, so it becomes brighter. I really want to buy more shades! There are only 4 in the range, but I think Milani should expand!

Nabla Cosmetics Skin Glazing – £20 from Beauty Bay

There was a lot of hype around these when they came out and although I wanted to buy one, every time I went to, they were all sold out! This is another baked highlighter, but it performs slightly more like a traditional powder impact wise. I feel like it’s a bit of a hybrid. It can be pretty intense and you can pick up quite a bit on your brush. However, it can also be softer like baked highlighters usually are.

The shade range is the best out of all of the highlighters I’m mentioning today. There are 8 shades and a few could be used as blushes if you’re paler, but would look stunning on deeper skin. Apparently you can use this highlighter both wet and dry. Wet for a mirror type shine, but I must admit, that’s not my style, so I’ve only used it dry.

As soon as I finally got my hands on this highlighter, it became a favourite. I use it SO much. Because I bought a light champagne shade, it goes with everything. If I’m ever not sure what highlighter to wear, I usually fall back on this one.

This really is one of the most beautiful highlighter formulas. I want to get one of the pinky shades next to use as a glowy blush. Because the glow can be soft, it’s not like you’re wearing a glittery blush. I would compare it to the MAC Extra Dimension formula.

Milani Strobelight Instant Glow Powder – £14 from Beauty Bay

The second Milani highlighter to be mentioned in my 6 Best Highlighters, this is a traditional powder highlighter. I have the shade Moon Glow and although there are 7 shades in this range, they are all quite light and similar. I have often looked at other shades and I do want them because this formula is amazing. However, I do wish they had a more inclusive range. The darkest one is a bronze, I don’t see anything that would work for deep skin. They’re far more geared towards light/medium skin tones.

This particular colour is actually a dupe of the limited edition Anastasia Amrezy highlighter from a couple of years ago. The Milani is slightly more pigmented in one swipe, but the colour is 99% the same.

This is another of those highlighters than I can always fall back on, I have got so much use out of it! I love the colour, it’s very flattering on the skin. You can build this up easily and it blends into the skin beautifully. The formula is soft and creamy and picks up very easily with a tapered face brush or a fan brush. I find baked formulas don’t pick up so well with fan brushes, but no such issues with this powder formula.

Laura Mercier Matte Baked Radiance Powder Highlight – £31 from Cult Beauty

The OG of highlighters, there was no way this wasn’t making it to my Best 6 Highlighters shortlist! This is the softest, most natural highlighter mentioned today. If you aren’t into highlighter, this is the highlighter for you. This was actually the first highlighter I bought years back and I still love it. To begin with I wasn’t confident with highlighters and was always worried I would look silly with metallic cheeks. However, formulas have moved on a lot since then and there are now quite a few formulas that look natural and soft on the face.

This is a baked formula which builds, but will never be blinding. It will always stay more of a natural glow. If I’m doing light makeup then this is the highlighter I use because it doesn’t look like you’re wearing anything. You just look like your skin is that glowy!

There’s no glitter in this formula, just a beautiful sheen, it does feel quite hard in the pan, but this is just because it’s a baked formula. There isn’t much kick up when you use a brush. I do find a denser brush works better with this formula.

Chantecaille Liquid Lumiere – £37 from Cult Beauty

Finally on my shortlist of the 6 Best Highlighters, is this liquid one from Chantecaille. I had wanted to try some products from Chantecaille for a while, but for the longest time, I couldn’t decide what. Then I got a discount code for Cult Beauty, so I spent ages looking at all their products and finally decided on buying a liquid highlighter and a blush.

I bought the shade Sheen and oh my goodness. The colour and formula of this liquid highlighter is incredible! I have a few liquid highlighters, but none look like this on my skin. It’s SO lightweight, it glides right on and blends in so easily with a finger. It doesn’t make you look like a disco ball, it’s a natural sheen. However, the best thing is that it doesn’t disrupt any of my other makeup.

Although I enjoy the other liquid highlighters I have, sometimes they look a bit noticeable. Almost like they are quite thick and they’ve stuck to my concealer/foundation. It’s only noticeable when you look up close, but with the Chantecaille one I don’t get that.

This tube will also last a lifetime because you need so little! It lasts all day and look so natural on the skin. When you squeeze it out and see it don’t be surprised by how metallic it looks! I was worried that it would be really noticeable, but it looks so natural and glowy! I want to buy allllll the shades!

SWATCHES

Here are some swatches of all of the highlighters mentioned. I put all the powder ones together and then the liquid one separately as it doesn’t show the same as a powder and needs a closer angle to show what the product is actually like.

So, there we have it my 6 Best Highlighters. Powder, baked, liquid, under £10 to almost £40, I’m hoping you’ll find the perfect highlighter for your tastes and budget!