Monday, July 4, 2016

Lancôme Glow Subtil Silky Creme Highlighter

I saw Lancôme's Glow Subtil Silky Creme Highlighter ($30) at Sephora online and knew I had to try it. This photo of Glowing Lights, described as Gold Mine, did it. There are five shades, so I sprang for two. Glowing Lights was the only one that had a mix of shades, which looked intriguing.

This buildable cream highlighter with light diffusing particles is said to deliver a natural-looking, soft-focused glow. Glow Subtil's silky cream highlighter gives a delicate, refined glow to the skin that highlights and illuminates your natural skin tone.

The highlighter allows for a vibrant, luminous color that adds a touch of radiance or can be layered for an intense glow so you can create a custom, soft-focused glow without a chalky or glitter-packed finish. It gleams. Enriched with a unique blend of skin-conditioning agents and light-diffusing particles, this easy-to-apply cream formula melts into your skin while remaining non-greasy and non-tacky.

Lancôme says this highlighter is infused with film formers and light diffusing ingredients that allow for superior color adherence and a flawless, soft focus finish. A special blend of dispersed elastomer and pigments work together to give the formula its bouncy spring. Indeed it has a bouncy spring in the pot.


Unfortunately, either Sephora sent me a flawed Gold Mine or UPS beat the heck out of it on the way to my house. That's Glowing Lights on the left and Rosegold Lights on the right. I thought briefly about exchanging Glowing Lights for an undamaged one, but then it hit me. With the product broken up, I could show you how very thin the actual product is in the deep pot. Look carefully,  and you will see the bottom of the pan a tiny fraction of an inch under the biggest break. You sure don't get much for your $30. I don't have a ruler handy, but I'd guess the pot stands an inch tall.

Here is a close-up in case you can't see just how shallow the product is. I think that's pretty chintzy. I didn't notice that the weight is 0.14 of an ounce. Regardless, it's a beautiful highlighter, so I kept it. I found I could mend the breaks partially with a sponge-tipped applicator by putting pressure on the fissures - one of which is as deep as the pitifully thin product.

I took my photos in full, mid-day sunshine on Saturday and used a sponge-tipped applicator to apply the highlighters relatively heavily. Aren't the colors gorgeous? Glowing Lights is shown at the top of my arm, with Rosegold Lights below. I think both shades are exquisite.

You can apply them lightly for a soft-focus glow or more heavily to taste. I would apply Rosegold heavily and use it as a blush. It's beautiful that way. If you choose to try that, use Gold Mine or any other gold highlighter above your blush at or slightly above the peak of your cheekbones.

There are some swatches shown on both light and dark skins on the Sephora site. They are not accurate. You can see that by comparing my two swatches to theirs. Why do they bother?

Here is my wrap up on Lancôme Glow Subtil Silky Creme Highlighter. It's a lovely highlighter with a reasonable price - until you find out just how little you get for your $30. If you can stand that, I'd recommend you try at least one. What are the chances that Sephora or UPS will break yours too?

I purchased mine at Sephora. I would assume you can also buy it from Lancôme, but I didn't find it online. I will check out the counter next time I pop into Neiman Marcus.

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

7 comments:

Christina Song said...

Is the shade Glowing Lights? I do not see a Gold Mine online

Eileen said...

It sort of makes you wonder what direction Lancôme is going with these. The younger, ColorPop demographic? They are gorgeous colors and the finish looks so smooth, but the meager amount of product combined with the cheap ColorPop packaging does make you wonder. There's legal wrangling going on between L'Oréal (Lancôme's parent) and Spatz Laboratories (ColorPop's provider) and I wonder if that has anything to do with Lancôme's presentation of this particular product--sort of a "If you can steal an idea from us, we can steal an idea from you" scenario. If that's the case, I hope L'Oréal comes to its senses and realizes that the Lancôme target isn't the same as that of ColorPop which is basically drugstore makeup that is not sold in drugstores. LOL. For those of you who aren't familiar with the situation, Spatz used to be a supplier to L'Oréal. They canceled their contract with L'Oréal and, in short order, produced the hugely successful Kylie lip kits for Jenner. L'Oréal is accusing Spatz of stealing their patented matte formula to do so. Let's hope the two "children" settle their differences so they can focus on their respective target audiences. When I buy Lancôme, I don't expect cheap, flimsy packaging and a stingy amount of product that breaks easily. If it were ColorPop, I'd just chalk it up to being a cheap product and not worry about it. Since it is Lancôme, I'd return it and get one that isn't broken--especially since the color is so beautiful.

Nemo said...

Never liked Lancôme. It falls into my category of cheap makeup, along with YSL, Givenchy, Nars, MAC. Cheap does not equate with price.

Charlestongirl said...

Hi Christina, yes, sorry! I have fixed it. I used the description "Gold Mine" for its name. Thanks for telling me!

Anonymous said...

Would you say that the Rose Gold could be used lightly as a blusher on light skin? Or is it too "glowy" (i.e. highlighter only)? I like the color of rose.

Charlestongirl said...

Hi Anonymous 5:16!

I have fair skin, and I've already used Rosegold as a blusher. I made sure to apply it lightly and blend it well. Looked great!

It does gleam, so I can't predict how it will look on oily skin. On my dry skin, it looked lively.

Resham said...

This is so beautiful!!