Hourglass Ambient Lighting Edit Unlocked Palette | Overview + Swatches

For the past few years, Hourglass has released a Limited Edition, 6-pan Ambient Lighting palette as the standout product in their holiday lineup. This year, we got not only one, but two palettes! I picked up one of them which I feel will be a fantastic, basic, all-in-one face palette that I can travel with or keep on my vanity for daily use.

The packaging is also adorned with a stamp of an adorable bunny rabbit to celebrate the brand becoming not only Cruelty Free, but Vegan! *throws glitter and confetti*

Hourglass Cosmetics is one of my all time, favorite brands. It's not as common for high end, luxury brands to be cruelty free (or not as common as I would like it to be). Because of this, I always recognize and praise Hourglass for providing high end products while standing by a moral that is important to them. My mom, as a great example, enjoys some high end products but also limits herself to only using cruelty free beauty products. I recommended Hourglass and got her one of their Ambient Lighting Blushes. She loves it because it looks nice and celebrates a cause that's important to her. Kudos to Hourglass!

OK, back to the product!

One cool thing to note about this particular product is that 5% of profits will go to support the Nonhuman Rights Project. 

This palettes contains six new, exclusive shades bronzer, blush, Ambient Lighting Powder and Metallic Strobe Lighting Powder. These powders are meant to diffuse and soften surrounding light to create a healthy, radiant and youthful glow.

I used to find the Ambient Lighting Powders confusing, as in, I didn't know what the intended purpose of the product was nor how to achieve the desired effect. Hourglass has kindle provided a "cheat sheet" to help guide those who might not be familiar with these products.

I like these palettes because they are so versatile; great for travel and great for everyday use. A highlighter, two blushes, a bronzer, and two ambient lighting powders. I'll go through these from left to right as indicated in my swatch pics =)

The highlighter is mildly glittery. To me it's a very "in between" highlighter; a little bit of glitter but nothing that would be classified as "chunky".

The blushes come in two shades: soft plum and shimmering light amber. The plum blush doesn't really look plum to me as it has pink undertones. It almost reminds me more of a raspberry shade than plum. The light amber blush has some peach tones in it so I wouldn't really classify it as "amber". Both provide a soft, subtle hue to the cheeks.

The bronzer is warm and might not work for you cooler undertones makeup lovers. The description says it's a "neutral" bronzer, but the name of the bronzer is "Golden Bronze Light" which suggests "warm tones" to me. Looking at my swatches, you can see it's still pretty warm toned.

The two other powders can be used to add warmth or simply to blur out imperfections. One is peach-beige in tone, the other is more of a fair, cool-toned beige. I lightly dust my face with the peach-beige powder. Since the cool-toned beige powder is too cool-toned for me, I use it for light bronzer and contour application. I then use the bronzer shade at just the highest points of my face to add a little extra warmth without going overboard. This is a good way to balance out some of the shades if they don't all work perfectly well for you on their own.

This product is one of my absolute favorites from the holiday lineup this year. Each shade is nice; there aren't any duds, and I have been consistently impressed with the outcome. The all-over face shade smooths things out so nicely. The bronzer and the cool-toned powder work well for me for contour and to add some warmth to the skin on my temples and cheekbones. The blushes look soft and natural on the face while providing a natural radiant flush, and the highlighter isn't chunky or glittery. All in all, I love this product; it's become a beloved "go to" item in my collection.

*Hourglass Cosmetics is a Cruelty Free (and Vegan!) brand <3

Thanks for reading!