OK, it’s official, I’m a huge Hourglass fan!! Wait, I may have mentioned that already! Hehe… Ever since Hourglass first teased a picture of the marble-design case on Instagram which features five glow-inducing, multi-dimensional powders, I knew I wanted the palette. After skipping last years’ edit palette because I had most of the shades from their core collection, I knew I couldn’t pass this one since this year it features entirely new shades of Ambient Lighting powder, blush, bronzer and highlighter.
Marble is a big trend now and I recently got a marble case for my laptop. The packaging has a trendy, gorgeous marbled effect case which looks just beautiful. It’s a quite sturdy plastic. The palette is the same size as last year’s Holiday palette.
In the Surreal Light Palette, we have 5 cheek/face powders revolving around the shade of Surreal Light, the largest of which is .14 oz. and the rest are .04 oz.
- Ambient Lighting Finishing Powder in Surreal Light – sheer nude (large)
- Ambient Lighting Bronzer in Surreal Bronze Light – neutral tan with Surreal Light (bottom middle)
- Ambient Lighting Blush in Surreal Glow – pale peony pink with Surreal Light (top middle)
- Ambient Lighting Blush in Surreal Effect – cool, pink rose with soft, warm peach (top right)
- Ambient Strobe Lighting Powder in Surreal Strobe Light – glimmering peach (bottom right)
This is a complete face palette, offering everything you need to get that glow. There are two blushes, one bronzer, one highlighter, and one finishing powder (which is the largest of the five shades). The shades are very light, soft and natural and the powders are silky, smooth and feel amazing on the skin. Each shade is finely milled and melts into the face upon contact. I love the Hourglass Ambient Lighting powders because they’re just so naturally perfecting. The “finishing powder” is just simply amazing and is designed to be used as an all-over setting powder. This sheer nude shade evens the complexion, sets makeup and leaves skin radiant but not glowy!! My favorite setting powder is the Ambient Lighting Powder in Dim Light so I am hoping that they release this nude shade on its own in the future as it has quickly become a favorite. Both of the blushes have a satin texture and are really beautiful and so flattering on the skin. The “Surreal Bronze” gives a nice subtle warm glow and I was pleased to see that there were no shimmer and finally, the “Surreal Strobe Light”, a luminous golden peach shimmer highlighter is a beauty! I did noticed some powdery kick up when I dipped my brush in the palette but there isn’t any fallout once it’s on your face.
The first time I used this palette I honestly wasn’t wowed, I don’t know why, maybe my skin was just rubbish that day but on the second try, third, fourth and every other time after that I felt in love. The shades are just so naturally perfecting although I wish Surreal Glow Blush was a tad more pigmented in color; other than that, the palette has pulled together the most perfect pairings.
If you want to know how well these might work for your skin tone, I’m MAC NC 40 and as you can see from the swatches above, the colors shows up and works really well for my medium olive skin. Despite being promoted as universally flattering, I really don’t know how well this will really show up on skin tone darker than mine. For the blushes and bronzers, the veining will vary between palettes so this will change the look of the shades as some may look more pigmented than others. For example, as you can see, my Surreal Glow blush has a lot of light veining, which gives it a less intense effect and that maybe why it’s not as pigmented as I would hope but my Surreal Effect blush has a bit more pigmentation. Even my Surreal Bronze Light has more of the veining so not a lot of pigmentation there either. Just want you all to keep that in mind!!
Overall, I love this palette! If you like the ease of having all of your face products in one convenient palette, or you’ve been wanting to try out Hourglass powders, then this is the way to go. The Hourglass Ambient Lighting Edit Surreal Light Palette is available at Sephora now, which is where I purchased mine, for CAD $95.00 / US $80.00, which is quite a pricey number but I personally feel this was worth the splurge.
What do you think of the new Hourglass Surreal Light Palette? Will you be getting this one?
xo ❤
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