Right now is a great time to be alive for lovers of highlighter. Fenty Beauty just launched Fenty Killawatt Freestyle Highlighter in Trophy Wife, the yellow-gold shimmer that is truly the most extra we’ve seen on the market in a while. Now, thestudyofmakeup, a makeup artist on Instagram, is going head-to-head with RiRi in the whole “shine bright like a diamond” department. Ladies and gentlemen, meet a new technique she calls the flare highlight.
The intense style sort of looks like what would happen if a solar flare had a baby with the flash from a camera. We’re truly in awe of the intensity of this highlight, even though we’re a little afraid to look directly at it.
But this look truly deserves the stares it demands. Its high-shine leaves thestudyofmakeup (who declares herself a “Disney princess” on her IG bio), looking like a glammed-up porcelain doll.
Thestudyofmakeup told Allure that while “Most people apply their highlight with a large fan brush,” her preferred tool is “a very dense wet eye shadow brush.” This “condenses the pigment and centralizes it,” which leads to a more precise, radiant shine.
According to the artist, her “secret” to achieving highlighter’s glow up is Swarovski crystals. After receiving a crystal-encrusted tiara from her boyfriend for her anniversary (casual), thestudyofmakeup decided to incorporate the light-reflecting gems into her beauty routine. For every post, she actually puts one crystal in the center of her highlight to “capture the lens flare.”
While that tidbit definitely comes off as fancy AF, the makeup artist actually gets her goddess glow via a drugstore product. She opts for Makeup Revolution’s Blushing Hearts Highlighter in Goddess of Love ($7). She prefers white highlighters to gold or rose-tinted ones partly because of her fair skintone, but also because “white doesn’t absorb light, it only reflects it.” In other words, it does this:
Image Source: JIVE Records