Liquid highlighter

Liquid highlighter is the shine of a powder highlighter carried in a fluid instead of a cake. The same effect pigments do the work — fine platelets, mostly mica coated with titanium dioxide or iron oxide — but they are suspended in a light emulsion, a silicone fluid or an oil, and sold in dropper bottles, squeeze tubes and wands with a cushion or doe-foot tip. Because the base is wet, it melts into the skin and leaves a sheen that reads as skin catching the light rather than powder resting on it, which is why it suits dry skin and faces with little else on them. Water-based formulas dry down to a thin, flexible film; silicone and oil ones stay slippery for longer and blend further, but can slide on oily skin.

Its neighbours are close enough to confuse. An illuminating primer goes on all over, under the base, and usually carries less pigment; a skin tint or glow foundation adds coverage as well as sheen; bronzing drops add colour where a highlighter adds light; and a cream highlighter stick is the same idea in a solid balm. What sets the liquid apart is range. The same bottle can make one exact stripe of light on a cheekbone or, mixed in, a glow across the whole face.

As a highlight. Dot a little along the top of the cheekbone, down the bridge of the nose and on the cupid’s bow, then tap the edges with a fingertip or a damp sponge until there is no line. Work quickly: many formulas set within a minute, and once set they move only in patches. Mixed in. A drop stirred into foundation, tinted moisturiser or plain moisturiser on the back of the hand gives an even sheen all over; start with less than seems necessary, because the glow builds faster than it looks. Under or over. Pressed on before foundation, a liquid highlighter glows softly through the base; tapped on over it, it gives the strongest and sharpest light.

Whichever you choose, put liquids on before powders. Powder over a liquid highlighter dulls it, and a liquid worked over powder lifts it in patches. To keep the shine on oily skin, set the areas around the highlight rather than the highlight itself.

Two places need care. Under the eyes, shine shows every fine line, so keep the highlight to the top of the cheekbone above them. And mixed into foundation, a little goes a long way: too much turns a glow into a sheen that reads as oil by lunchtime.

Liquids run from a soft, pearly sheen to a high, near-metallic shine. The softer ones are the everyday kind and forgive texture; the stronger ones are made to be seen, and will find every pore on the nose and forehead. For shade the rule is the one for every highlighter: pearl and champagne on fair skin, gold and peach in the middle range, and bronze, copper and deep gold on dark skin, where pale and silvery liquids leave a grey cast. A tone a little deeper than feels safe usually looks more like skin.

Shake the bottle before use. Pearl pigment is heavier than the fluid that carries it and sinks to the bottom, the same settling that chemists fought when they first put pearl into nail polish.^[1] A liquid that looks thin at the top and dense at the base needs shaking, not throwing away. Keep the wand or dropper clean for the reason that applies to anything that goes back into its bottle: whatever it touched goes in with it.

“Liquid pearl” is an older name than the product. In 1883 the Michigan State Pharmaceutical Association listed the contents of complexion preparations on sale in America, many of which James Bennett, who traces the trade’s history at Cosmetics and Skin, describes as pearl powders or liquid pearls. Champlain’s Liquid Pearl turned out to be bismuth oxychloride, the “pearl white”, with chalk in highly perfumed water.^[2] Its purpose was whiteness, not shine. When real pearl lustre did reach cosmetics, it came as a liquid for a practical reason. Pearl essence, made from fish scales, could not be produced in a dry form because its crystals clumped, so it went first into nail polish, in the 1920s, then into lipsticks and eye make-up, and some chemists added it to foundations and creams.^[3]

The fashion that brought liquid highlighter into everyday use is recent. In July 2015 a writer for Refinery29 reported that the hashtag #strobing had been everywhere for weeks: highlighter placed wherever the sun would naturally hit the face, often with no contour at all, with liquid and cream formulas the most popular for it.^[4] That November an analyst at the NPD Group told Gulf News that strobing, “which emerged in early 2015”, was driving shoppers to spend more on highlighters.^[5] Not everyone thought it new. The makeup artist Wayne Goss told Refinery29 that “there are no ‘trends’”: highlighting of this kind had been done for years.^[4] What had changed was who was doing it, and the highlighters below are what that fashion left on the shelf.