How To Apply Highlighter
Esha Saxena is a writer and journalist with over 3 years of experience. She holds a master’s degree in media and mass communication from St. Francis College for Women, Hyderabad, and firmly believes that makeup is nothing less than art.
Read full bio of Esha Saxena
Image: Shutterstock
Highlighter is easily one of the hottest makeup trends right now. It is your one-way ticket to an instant, all-over radiant glow. This light-reflecting product is an incredible way to infuse life into your look and make you look more awake. If you’re new to wearing makeup, you need to learn a few tricks to achieve perfect highlighter placement to help you create dimension and emphasize your beautiful features.
Want that lit-from-within look but aren’t sure how to work with a highlighter? Read on! This article is your handy guide to gorgeous, glowy skin.
In This Article
How To Apply Highlighter On Face
Makeup artists and celebrities often use the magical art of highlighting in addition to contouring to help lift and push features back. Don’t you worry, it’s unbelievably simple once you get the hang of it.
What You Need
- Fan brush
- Powder highlighter
- Blush palette
- Dome-shaped brush
- Blending brush
How To Apply Highlighter – Step By Step Tutorial With Pictures
Before you go in with your highlighter, make sure you’re done with your base makeup like your foundation, contour, and bronzer. Highlighting is the next step.
Step 1: Apply Your Blush First (To Make The Highlight Pop Even More)
Take your favorite blush palette and pick a shade that looks subtle and natural on you. Use a blush brush to apply the color to the apples of your cheeks and blend it out well.
Step 2: Strategically Map Out Your Face
No matter what your face shape is, the areas you need to highlight are the tops of your cheekbones, down the center of your nose, your forehead, your cupid’s bow, and your chin (refer to the diagram.) These are the places where the light will naturally hit your face. It’s not a must to highlight all these areas – your cheekbones, nose, cupid’s bow, and the arch of your eyebrows are also enough. It’s all a matter of preference.
Step 3: Highlight Your Preferred Areas
Lay your fan brush flat on your highlighter palette and then apply it directly on the highest points of your cheekbones exactly where the light would hit your face. Make sure you blend out the edges of your highlight. You can also run it along your brow bone just so all the lines are connected, and everything looks coherent. Next, apply the highlight to the bridge of your nose and also onto your cupid’s bow.
Step 4: Set Your Makeup
Spray a makeup fixing spray two to three times on the areas that you’ve highlighted. Take a damp Beauty Blender and push the product into your skin. This will get rid of any kind of powderiness on your skin while intensifying the glow on your face. If you want a little extra highlight, gently go over the same areas again using a fluffy brush and some more product (do this before your fixing spray is entirely dry!).
Here’s what it finally looks like!
Highlighter Tips And Tricks Every Beginner Should Know
Now that you know how to apply highlighter perfectly, we’ve got a bunch of hacks that will help you master the art of highlighting. Here’s what you need to know to shine like a naturally flushed diamond:
- It’s important to choose a highlighter formula that suits your skin type. If you have oily to combination skin, a powder highlighter is best suited for your skin. If you’re someone with dry skin, a cream or liquid formulation will work best.
- Next comes selecting the right shade or hue for your complexion. If you have fair to medium skin, look for something with pink undertones. Golden hues look extremely flattering on darker skin tones. Champagne tones are universal and look beautiful on any complexion.
- Your makeup tools play a crucial role in how your highlight turns out. For liquid and cream formulations, synthetic brushes are ideal. However, for a highlighting powder, stick to a fantail brush for a gorgeous and subtly ethereal finish.
- What kind of light you apply your highlighter under is just as important. During the day, opt for natural lighting. If you’re getting ready for the night, go for softer lighting to avoid overdoing your makeup.
- Contour is not a must. You can add your highlighter and create radiance without having to go full-on with contouring.
- If you’re worried about your foundation smudging when using a liquid highlighter, you can avoid this by using a blending sponge or your fingers to work it into your skin right after applying foundation. Remember, a little goes a long way, and you don’t want to apply too much pressure. This way, the formula won’t get mixed with your foundation.
- All you ladies with mature skin who are dealing with fine lines (don’t worry, embrace it!), try using a dewy, creamy highlighter like the Josie Maran Argan Enlightenment Illuminizer as it will help add a healthy, youthful glow to your face.
• You can also use a tiny dab of Vaseline on the top of your cheekbones to add a beautiful, radiant sheen to your face. This trick works best for those of you with dry skin.
• If you’re tired of the same old neutral highlighters, it’s time you swap yours for holographic highlighters. These come with a clear, opalescent base, and when the light hits the high points of your face, these highlighters shift to different rainbow colors. They’re perfect if you want to look like an ethereal fairy princess. Try the Cover FX Custom Enhancer Drops in the shade Halo.
This is THE year of the highlight, and you can never go wrong with luminous, bright skin. That was our take on how to apply highlighter with utter perfection. We hope this article helps you conquer the art of illuminating and highlighting your skin. Do you have any go-to technique or favorite highlighters that you swear by? Let us know in the comments section below!
Read full bio of Esha Saxena
