Random Product Review! Fyrinnae's In The Spotlight Highlighter

By Unknown

Fyrinnae's In The Spotlight highlighter

Hello, shiny happy people! My pre-teen roll-on glitter years aside, I had a phobia of highlighter for the longest time--somehow lipstick and foundation seemed unintimidating to me, but the idea of winding up with my skin visibly sparkling was terrifying to me. Eventually I made peace with the idea, but I am still always on the lookout for subtle, glowy highlighters and finishing powders rather than metallic, frosty, sparkly ones.

Reviews of Fyrinnae's highlighters seemed few and far between, but I'd had such good luck with their other products, I thought it was worth a try, so I purchased Fyrinnae's In The Spotlight a few years ago. My fellow blogger Kristin has swatched it here before alongside Confidence, but I thought I'd give a more in-depth review today.

My jar is pretty old now, and according to the website, the newer highlighters (purchased after January 7, 2015) are double the old jar size. The current In The Spotlight is available in an 8-gram jar for $9, or as a sample in a jar for $1.75. My jar did not have a sifter and I don't see a mention of one in the new version, either. The website describes it as "Pale golden-yellow shade with a hint of gold shimmer. No sparkle!" and it contains mica, titanium dioxide, and iron oxides.

In the Spotlight jar label

In the Spotlight shaken into the jar lid

I would describe In The Spotlight as a medium-light, strongly yellow-toned, shimmery loose powder highlighter. It does have visible shimmer particles in bright light--nothing too noticeable, but if you're looking for purely 100% satiny "glow" without any visible shimmer, this may be slightly too much for you, at least in bright daylight. It is quite subtle on the whole, though, and you might not notice the sparkle in low lighting conditions at all. I've swatched it below heavily and blended out, on roughly NC30 skin (bare, no base), and you can barely see the blended-out swatch in the photo.

Fyrinnae In the Spotlight highlighter: left, applied heavily; right, blended out

I really like this highlighter--it does give a glowy, subtle effect and is easy to blend out/hard to overapply, but to be honest, I find it too strongly brassy yellow-toned to be a holy grail highlighter for me. My skin is fairly warm-toned but you can see the yellow-golden effect of this highlighter contrasting with my skintone--it would probably be even more dramatic against someone with cool or neutral undertones.

I've swatched it here alongside the more champagne-colored and far more sparkly TheBalm Mary Lou-Manizer, a very popular mainstream highlighter, for comparison. You can see that In The Spotlight is very yellow in comparison. I use Mary Lou-Manizer for nights out when I'm feeling dramatic, and as an eyeshadow or inner eye highlight, where its higher shimmer level is appropriate; In the Spotlight gives a more natural, subtle glow. I don't find that it particularly emphasizes pores. Longevity seems average for a powder highlighter for me.

Left to right: TheBalm Mary Lou-Manizer blended out, TheBalm Mary Lou-Manizer applied heavily, Fyrinnae In the Spotlight applied heavily, In the Spotlight blended out

Fyrinnae does have some other highlighters with a similar finish but other undertones--Center Stage is a peachy golden shade, Confidence is a pale, cool rose pink, and Penguin is a cool lavender-mauve color that seems to be usable as a contour or blush shade for certain skintones.

If you see a color among these highlighters that appeals to you, I think this formula is excellent and well worth trying out!

Have you tried Fyrinnae's highlighter offerings? Do you have a favorite indie highlighter to recommend to us?