How to add highlighter to your makeup routine for party season (2024)

"Natural radiance", says legendary makeup artist Mary Greenwell as she demos natural-looking makeup at an event on healthy skin. This is what a good highlighter can feign when the weather has made your skin dry, dull and devoid of any summer glow.

Highlighter is a makeup essential all year round, but in during party season when skin's hit the hardest, it can become the most valuable piece in your beauty kit. Glass skin, natural dew, shimmery sculpting - all easy to achieve with the right product.

But where should highlighter go? Makeup Artist Sofia Tilbury explains that you should, "apply highlighter on top of the cheekbones, down the centre of the nose and along the Cupid’s bow".

She added: "Highlighter is all about mimicking the effects of light, so just apply it in the highest points of the face."

Here we round-up the most popular highlighting techniques to help you create your perfect glow.

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Inner glow

Dewy-looking skin is perfect for those wanting a natural approach to highlighter, so that the skin looks lit from within. A good place to start is with the Perricone MD No Makeup Highlighter, which was reformulated this year to include smarter ingredients such as peptides. It comes in one shade as it's so sheer. Add a few dabs of this on the tops of the cheekbones for luminosity and pat in with your finger.

For slightly more glimmer without the shimmer, try Glossier Haloscope, a stick that Glossier calls a "dew effect" highlighter. It comes in three shades with varying deepness and iciness to suit a range of skin tones and undertones. This one has a tackier feel to the skin that doesn't set down like the Perricone, so keep that in mind if you touch your face a lot in the day.

Use lighter formulas for this look like Lumene Instant Glow Beauty Serum, a sheer tint that can take the place of foundation for those who want their skin to show through. To set makeup, lightly dust Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powder in Dimmed Light over your t-zone. The small light reflecting particles will mean that your glow won't vanish.

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Perricone MD No Makeup Skincare Highlighter

Now 30% Off

How to add highlighter to your makeup routine for party season (3)

Glossier Haloscope, £18

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Lumene Invisible Illumination Instant Glow Beauty Serum

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Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powder

High shine

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2017 saw the beginning of the glass skin trend inspired by K-Beauty. Glass skin looks glossy, wet and has a transparent sheen. Anything with glitter or shimmer is out the window. Products that give this kind of glow to the skin tend to be liquid and creamy formulas with some tack to the touch. This doesn't have to be uncomfortable though, and it can make for a more sophisticated highlight.

We recommend first trying the trend with Charlotte Tilbury Hollywood Flawless Filter, a liquid glow enhancer that can be used as a primer, mixed in with foundation, or over the top of foundation on the high points of the face.

Charlotte Tilbury makeup artist Sofia warns: "With liquid highlighter, you’ve got to watch out for patchiness, so you don’t want to apply too much. A little goes a long way!" Start with a gentle swipe of the product and melt the liquid into the cheekbone with fingers or use a Real Techniques Setting Brush to lightly blend.

Other products loved by the GH beauty team for this look are Glossier Futuredew - a skincare hybrid, Chanel Baume Essentiel in Transparent - a reflective clear formula, and Beautyblender Glass Glow Shinelighter - it's in the name!

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Charlotte Tilbury Hollywood Flawless Filter

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Real Techniques Setting Brush

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CHANEL BAUME ESSENTIEL

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BEAUTYBLENDER Glass Glow Shinelighter

Now 62% Off

Sculpt and strobe

For the ultimate party look, use an intense highlighter. Milk Makeup Flex Highlighter is a shimmery powder that gives a metallic, slightly wet looking sheen. The soft texture of this powder means that you'll pick up a lot of product with one brush stroke, so use a light hand and start gently to build your desired level of glow. A thin fan brush, like this Smashbox one, will help too.

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If you're concerned about emphasising skin texture, Milk Makeup MUA Sara Wren suggests "using powders with a silky texture or layering them on top of a cream highlighter as the creamy base helps hydrate skin. Hydrated skin shows less texture and powder highlighter blends beautifully when layered". She also advises opting for a pearlescent highlighter instead of something with chunky glitter as it will settle less into fine lines and wrinkles.

Charlotte Tilbury Film Star Bronze and Glow has all you need in one palette for strobing. By chiselling out your cheekbones with a bronzer you naturally make any highlighter look stronger. Think of it as playing with shadow and light - where do you want the shadow to fall and what do you want the light to illuminate?

Other options include Topshop Glow Pot, a creamy texture that blends easily with fingers and gives a metallic glow without any glitter, and Illamasqua Beyond Powder in OMG Burst which has a pink hue so can be used as a blush topper (place slightly below your highlighter and over blusher) for dewy cheeks.

Pablo Rodriguez, Director of Artistry at Illamasqua also thinks a pearlised finish is best for "credible radiance that isn't too frosted or too wet looking". When building a stronger look for parties, be careful of having "too much product sitting on the skin" - the more seamless and blended the better.

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Milk Makeup Flex Highlighter

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Charlotte Tilbury Filmstar Bronze & Glow

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Illamasqua Beyond Powder

Now 50% Off

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Glow Pot

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£12.00

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