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Pat McGrath Skin Fetish 003 Review & Swatches

Pat McGrath Skin Fetish 003 Review & Swatches

Pat McGrath Labs recently launched on Sephora.com, and I was one of the lucky few who snagged the new Skin Fetish 003 Highlighters. There are (or I suppose, WERE) two shades of these highlighter sets available: Nude and Golden. I have both to share with you today.

Let me just get this out of the way- these are the perfect the definition of the word "overpriced." At $72 a pop, I expected WAY more. The outer packaging is horrendous. The sequins look very pretty and unique, but the second you are finished taking pictures and have to remove the makeup products from the quicksand of sequins, all of that appeal flies right out the window. The sequins get everywhere, no matter how hard you try to prevent it. It reminds me of trying to find the little plastic toy in a cereal box. You get so excited when you finally get your hands on the toy, but ultimately, it's a cheap piece of plastic that ends up going to waste. That's exactly what I think of when I look at the actual plastic packaging of these products. From a packaging standpoint, they really do look, feel, and act just like $3-5 ELF packaging. It's as plain and as simple as that.

Now let's discuss the actual makeup and formulas. The brush is nice- light and feathery bristles. I personally didn't buy this set for the brush, so I didn't expect much. The double-ended stick highlighter is such a gimmicky concept. The "balm" side is literally a vanilla-flavored lip balm...that's it. The "highlighter" side is okay, but it never sets, so within two hours of wear, it completely vanished off of my face. Now for the powder highlight- the REASON everyone purchased the set. Both of the shades of powder highlighter are BEAUTIFUL. Really really stunning. I can't say anything bad about the formula or the colors EXCEPT that you only get 4 grams of product. FOUR GRAMS. That's practically nothing in the highlighter world.

Here's a closer look at the two different sets:

Nude- Clear balm, champagne cream highlighter, & iridescent pink duo-chrome powder highlighter

Golden- Clear balm, light gold cream highlighter, & iridescent golden with micro-shimmer powder highlighter

Here's how the two different sets look swatched next to each other:

I think the overall presentation of the products could have been much better. The sequins were cute in theory, but a hassle in execution. The actual plastic components are annoyingly cheap. I definitely don't think these are must-haves, so if you missed out, don't even worry about it.

With that being said, I do have my eye on some VERY affordable alternatives (at least, to the powder highlighters) that I'm dying to get my hands on. Once I do, I will definitely follow up in another post with some comparison pictures.

I will leave you with this one last picture, because I think the Golden Powder Highlighter is absolutely mesmerizing in person. The only way I could even closely capture the micro-shimmer is through a blurry picture, so here you go:

xoxo Eshani a.k.a. TotalMakeupJunkie101

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