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