TheBalm Mary Lou-Manizer Swatches: Quick Swatch

Today's post is just a quick swatch of TheBalm's Mary Lou-Manizer, the beige/champagne shimmery highlighter that's been getting lots of raves from everyone. I happened to be in the store, looking around, when this caught my eye, and I was entertaining that age-old question that plagues every beauty blogger, "To buy or not to buy". (Believe me, after nearly 5 years as a beauty blogger, saying no to that question isn't any easier than it was when I began...Darn the slick marketing departments of beauty brands.) Of course being the diligent beauty blogger that I am I also took photos for my blog.

TheBalm Mary Lou-Manizer Swatch

As you might know, Mary Lou-Manizer (luminizer, haha) is a champagne shade that is actually quite shimmery. I made two swatches, a heavy one and a light one. The colour is really pretty, and overall the product gives off a gold sheen on the face. I did notice however that in direct strong sunlight this looks a little sparkly...As in you can see the sunlight bouncing off the individual sparkles in this product. I'm not too sure how I feel about that, sparkly has always been a thing a good illuminator should avoid, in my opinion. In all other lights (indoors, shaded sunlight) this seemed fine. These swatches are taken indoors so they look a little more metallic and less illuminating, but they don't look that bad in most other lights. And I imagine if in real life this is applied with a fan or stippling brush, it will be just a hint of shimmer and sparkle.

In the end, I didn't get these because one of the Etude House highlighters I got in Korea lately, the Face Designing Brightener in #1 Wannabe Face, kind-of-sort-of reminded me of this (also another beige-y highlighter with shimmer) so although I'm pretty sure they're probably not dupes, I didn't buy it. So I escaped for today. (Who knows when I might cave, or what I might cave in on next, though!)