Tuesday, May 3, 2016

Urban Decay Afterglow 8-Hour Powder Highlighter

I shouldn't be swayed by InStyle. After all, they are compensated to feature beauty products. I thought this time I would give an Urban Decay product a whirl. The daughter of a Facebook friend wrote the piece, and she praised this product to new heights. It's too bad that the Afterglow 8-Hour Powder Highlighter ($26) isn't as nice as I had expected. Live and learn - over and over again.

I selected two of the three shades. Fireball, shown at left above, is described as a peach with a pink shift. OK. That had potential. Sin, shown at right above, is described as champagne. Aura, the one I didn't select, looked like a ghastly lavender-pink online.

Urban Decay describes Afterglow 8-Hour Powder Highlighter as a super-soft, long-wearing, blendable powder highlighter for "strobing." I am already tired of the new term "strobing" used in place of highlighting.

Afterglow 8-Hour Powder Highlighter is finely-milled to perfection for a lightweight (yet luxurious) result with an ultra-soft, creamy texture. It goes on sheer and blends in easily so that you can apply just a little or a lot. The wearable formula applies seamlessly, no matter how much you build it, and it has shades that are suitable for any skin tone. It creates a radiant, strobed effect that lasts all day - and never leaves just a powdery dusting of shimmer. Infused with light-diffusing pigments, it enhances and perfects the skin.

That could be true, depending on your skin and its moisture level. I took my swatch photo in full sun. I applied the highlighters heavily for maximum color with a sponge-tipped applicator. Unfortunately, my swatch photo does not show the true horror of Fireball - a shade that had so much pretty peach potential when I saw the photos.

On my skin in the photo above, Fireball looks peachy - except where the sun hits it directly. There its true nature - so "un-peach" - shows. Look at the blue pink in the center of the swatch. The color is way too blue to be pretty on most of us. The Sin color is fine, champagne as described. It's nice enough, but not special. How many champagne highlighters do we need?

The texture is these highlighters is nice. It is creamy for a powder. The price is certainly attractive at $26. However, I am disappointed. The one that I wanted the most, Fireball, is a blue pink on my face, and I don't find that an attractive highlighting color on me.

Here is another swatch photo. I don't like the blue tone. I should have picked up on its description: "peach with a pink shift." It certainly is a pink shift. Blue pink, and not at all attractive. On my skin, it looks like I had expected Aura to look. I even wondered if it was mislabeled, but the compact does show a peach shade.

I would not recommend that you try Urban Decay's Afterglow 8-Hour Powder Highlighter, unless you want to select Sin for its price and light champagne color. There are plenty of other highlighters on the market that are more worthy of your money - no matter what InStyle says.

You can purchase these highlighters at Sephora if you are curious.

Photo at top courtesy of Sephora; other photos by Best Things in Beauty

7 comments:

Charlestongirl said...

You can really see how pink Fireball is here: http://www.musingsofamuse.com/2016/03/urban-decay-afterglow-highlighter-review-swatches.html

AnnieM said...

Good morning CG!
Thank you for the post. I tend to enjoy a lot of UD products and am happy to see this one. I lean towards selecting the blue-red hues for lipstick and blush and actually thought this was a nice shade. I have a dark rose colored blush from a foreign cosmetic line that is a bit too flat in its finish so something like this might be a way to amp it up a bit by the additional of a slight sheen. I'm sorry your experience was not as pleasant but I do appreciate you showcasing this for us. Hope your week is going well.

Cheers!

Sandra said...

Than you for the post, CG! I actually tried the UD Afterglow on my last trip to Sephora on the suggestion of the lovely, young MA there (who I might add could wear pure "chalk" and look beautiful!). I, however, looked like someone out of the "Walking Dead" and did not like the way it felt on my dry skin. Actually the young MA agreed that Urban Decay was not for me! It was fun trying the products, though!

Grlnxdor said...

I have UD's eyeshadow single Fireball and it's lovely--pink & peach duo-chrome. I find highlighters really tricky to get right with my skin tone. One of my all time favorites is the Bobbi Brown Shimmer Brick in Platinum Pink that I won from one of your contests, CG, several years ago! It's not too frosty or metallic like some highlighters.

Charlestongirl said...

Grlnxdor, I adore Shimmer Bricks! I'm so glad you like yours.

Charlestongirl said...

AnnieM, I'm glad someone like it! That's why I posted it.

Charlestongirl said...

Sandra, did she actually mean it was too "young" for us? I don't care for that point of view. Aging simply means we get better at editing what looks good on our changing skin tones and types. I'm more of a blank slate than I used to be. It's kind of cool.

I know the dangers of blind buying. You win some: you lose some. :)