Etude House Precious Mineral Brightener

My Etude House Precious Mineral Brightener arrived today! If you follow my blog then you are already aware of my highlighter obsession. Seriously, it's gotten out of hand... I'm going to take a photo of my entire collection one day just to show you guys. This craze probably comes from the fact that my skin is pale with yellow undertones and highlighters and glow creams enhance the brightness of my skin while adding a flush of life to my tone. Also because it helps decrease or eliminate the "redness" from beige pigments in foundations I use. This is why I always get excited when I find products that work wonders on pale skin and just want to share the love with my fellow pasties out there. LOL! Generally I scour Asian beauty shops for foundations and cosmetics to match my tone because they cater to women with pale or yellow skin undertones. The closest match I get is from L'Oreal foundation believe it or not but most other cosmetic brands generally think only of the needs of medium skin tones. Medium color foundations are the largest color group that's outsells every other shade, I did some research, it's the most popular skin coloring for cosmetic companies. That's not to say they don't have light and dark shades available but when they create light shades they add too much red pigments which show up really bad on pale skin. Hence, me shopping the Asian brands. I'm sure Latina's and African American women feel the same way when they try to match their skin tone perfectly and an exact match comes up short. It's frustrating to say the least when you need special options and it's slim pickings on the market. My opinion on this is that the companies are just manufacturing products which are "popular" at mass retail selling the most and making them the most money. It's a shame because these corporations lack of interest in every type of woman is an untapped market. Now of course there are brands out there that sell to specific ethnic groups but they are too high priced and you have to go out of your way to find them. My angst is for the mass retail brands that you can easily and inexpensively find at your local Target or pharmacy. Anyway, back to my review. I'll start with the packaging which is a cute holographic silver box with the bubblegum pink plastic compact having a round scallop trim. You get a generous size mirror powder pan. It just doesn't appear to be that deep and I can't find the gram size because it's written in Asian. The powder has a lovely design of a half moon and spheres in different shades or pearl. The powder formula contains minerals and ground pearl powder. Although the colors in the pan consist of  ice pink, pale pink, pale gold and pale blue swirls it all comes up as one shade on your skin which is a pinkish pearly white but. The glow payoff is decent without being too bright and there's no glitter in it so you can use it during the day. The powder is somewhat dry and you need to swirl the brush and swipe it a few times to get maximum glow. Plus you need the right brush, one that is less full and smaller. Since this is very lightweight in terms of coverage it could probably work well with all skin tones because it should cast a soft natural sheen. It's not the best highlighter in my collection but it's fun and affordable. They could have improved on it with a creamy formula and maybe adding a little puff for when you want to pat on specific areas. I'm glad the Etude House has a USA site which you can order from saving me the trouble of paying international shipping fees since this brand is made in Korea. This is great to have in your purse when you need a little extra glow to energize your skin. Stay beautiful! XOXO

Availability: Etude House USA $19.99