I’ve decided to make “new in my make-up bag” a weekly feature – any excuse to buy new beauty products is good for me, and this week I’m featuring the Ambient Lighting Palette by Hourglass.

New in my make-up bag this week

This week, my new product is the 3-in-1 Ambient Lighting Palette by Hourglass, custom-made to contain DIFFUSED LIGHT (as a highlighter), RADIANT LIGHT (as a bronzer), and MOOD LIGHT (as a blusher) (although you could buy each item separately and the blusher is an optional extra) and here are three easy steps for how to contour.

New in my make-up bag - ambient lighting palette by Hourglass

Despite having watched countless tutorials on YouTube and visited numerous make-up counters, contouring has always been something of a mystery to me! So I have adopted a very simple three step process that takes minimal time and works for me!

First – the basics:

  •  the highlighter should be one or a maximum of two shades lighter than your skin tone and you use it to accentuate areas of your face that naturally catch the light, such as the bridge of your nose.
  • the bronzer should be one to two shades darker than your skin tone and use it to shade areas you’d like to define or reshape, usually your cheekbones.

Now, the three steps, which should come after applying foundation:

  • make a fish-face and apply the bronzer (RADIANT LIGHT) from ear-level to the hollow of your cheeks. With what’s left on the brush, trace along your hairline and jawline.
  • apply the highlighter (DIFFUSED LIGHT) along the top of your cheekbones and the bridge of your nose (but stop before you reach the tip). You can also apply a touch in the centre of your eyelids and along the brow bone to brighten your eyes.
  • if you wish, you can apply the blusher (MOOD LIGHT) to the apples of your cheeks

The most important final step is to BLEND really well, so there are no visible lines.

The reasons I chose the ambient lighting palette by hourglass were firstly the practicality of having three products in one case and secondly because the Photoluminescent Technology used in the powders is very flattering and helps to conceal any skin imperfections.

The standard Ambient Lighting palette contains the following three powders:

• DIM LIGHT: A neutral peach beige powder (which I replaced with the pinker toned MOOD LIGHT)
• INCANDESCENT LIGHT (exclusive to the palette): An opalescent pearl powder (which I replaced with the DIFFUSED LIGHT, which has a slightly yellower tone to help camouflage redness)
• RADIANT LIGHT: A golden beige powder, which I kept to give a summer glow and to facilitate contouring.

I hope you enjoyed this feature about The Ambient Lighting Palette by Hourglass, and you can have a look here for more of our beauty features.