TARTE Rainforest of the Sea Skin Twinkle Lighting Palette

[Purchased]

Tarte Rainforest of the Sea Skin Twinkle Lighting Palette (0.485 oz.) retails for $42 USD ($50 CAD) The palette is permanent and features three shades; two highlighters and one setting powder. It is said to be "a highlighting trio palette with three universal shades for strobing and perfecting."

* Perfecting Powder in Filtered Light (0.085 oz.)

* Luminous Perfecting Powder in Sunlight (0.20 oz.)

* Luminous Perfecting Powder in Moonlight (0.20 oz.)

"Brighten up your complexion with a radiant “twinkle” using this sleek, strobing and highlighting palette. Featuring a versatile trio of silky perfecting powders, you can filter and reflect light for a soft focus glow. The middle Filtered Light shade is your go-to setting powder in a universal matte sand that brightens and corrects any darkness under the eyes. Paired with two full-size, luminous perfecting powders, they’re perfect for illuminating the contours of the face for a natural-looking glow that flatters all skintones."

The packaging is a slim, metallic gold plastic compact with a blue water design on the front. It also features a standard snap closure and opens to reveal a mirror. Despite the "flatters all skin tones" claim, while the Skin Twinkle Lighting Palette will suit a wide variety of people, it would have been nice to see two separate palettes; one geared towards light-medium and another for tan-deep skin tones.

Sunlight is a light, champagne gold with warm undertones and a frosted finish. The texture was soft, smooth and had an almost buttery consistency despite being lightly powdery. It had semi-sheer pigmentation that was buildable and left a luminous glowing sheen to the skin. The product was easy to blend across the skin, but I felt it sheered away easily the more you tried to diffuse the product. Sunlight lasted +7.5 hours before fading. (5/5)

* Becca Champagne Pop was darker, warmer, more peach. Becca Moonstone was more opaque, shimmery.

Filtered Light is a light, yellow beige with warm undertones and a matte finish. The texture was very firm and stiff in the pan, it's hard to pick up a decent amount of product, either with your finger or a brush, as the powder itself is very thin, dry and weightless. It has difficulties adhering to skin and can look chalky at times. It had incredibly sheer pigmentation and left a very fine, sparse micro-shimmer on the skin at a closer inspection.

I think the idea behind this powder is to be a setting powder; it contains ingredients like mica and silica, which most other setting powders do. It has a similar texture to those types of powders with the exception of being chalky and firm. When taking that concept into consideration (a setting powder over a highlighting powder), this is a less disappointing product, but with that said, I didn't feel it improved the wear time or overall look of my make up at all. (1/5)

Moonlight is a light-medium, peach gold with warm undertones and a frosted finish. The texture was again soft, smooth and had an almost buttery feel to it. It had nice color payoff, much stronger than the other, including the finish, and blended out on the skin effortlessly without emphasizing the look of pores. Moonlight wore well for +7.5 hours before fading. (5/5)

* Becca Champagne Pop was darker, more opaque, shimmery. Becca Opal was darker, more bronze, shimmery. NYX Nectar was darker, more peach, less frosted.

Overall, this was a mildly disappointing palette for the price. While the highlighters had a texture that was easy to work with, nice performance and left the skin with a glowing sheen, the perfecting powder was difficult to use and looked chalky once applied—it really left me wishing the brand would have made this palette strictly highlighting powders or released them for sale individually. With that said, I do recommend checking this palette out simply for the highlighting aspect, so long as you can justify the price.

Available now from Sephora