How it’s happened that I don’t own a single rainbow highlighter (until now) is beyond me, but hey – here we are! I have to say, when one of my favourite brands decided to put out a rainbow highlighter with their latest collection, I was all over it – I had to have it!

Too Faced‘s Life’s A Festival collection focused on rainbows and unicorns, and one of the items that caught my eye the most was this Rainbow Strobe Highlighter. I just loved the idea of just putting a straight rainbow pattern on my face! But you do always have to question if it’ll come out just as pretty as you imagine it will.

The Rainbow Strobe Highlighter is infused with rose quartz to add some love energy to your makeup but I wouldn’t say that it actually does anything – just makes for cutesy marketing! They do claim it has a prismatic effect, and for me that basically boiled down to discovering that there are bit of finely milled glitter that are in the formula.

Too Faced encourages you to use a flat brush the width of the pan in order to get the full on rainbow effect. They do also make a rainbow brush that perfectly matches the size of the pan and all of the stripes, but I opted to only buy the highlighter and use one of my existing makeup brushes.

I had mixed feelings when I initially swatched the product. I expected the colours to come through a lot more. As you can see on the left, there is a hint of rainbow, but it’s quite pale. I suppose that’s what most people are going for when they want a rainbow highlighter – something subtle and not too in your face. I’m the opposite I suppose – I wanted something a little bit louder! You will have to layer the product a bit in order to get the effect you see on my arm.

When the colours are swirled all together, you get more of a pale-golden sheen. This is where the glitter sparkles are a lot more obvious, and I think it’s because they get knocked loose in the pan a bit more.

I first tried out the rainbow highlighter on my temple in this video, and you can see how it’s there… but it’s still what I would call a hint of a rainbow – it’s definitely on the sheer side of things. I also found that application was a little bit difficult: you have to have a brush that’s wide enough for the pan (which is not something most people have I don’t think) and you have to layer it on a lot in order to get the rainbow to show up. Also, the first few times I applied it I would it to be a bit chunky and the edges definitely needed blending out. Oddly, hard-pan formed pretty much instantly in the compact itself, but I didn’t notice much of a difference in colour payoff.

It was almost comical to me how the highlighter had SO MUCH more impact when I swirled it all together and applied it to my cheekbones. I actually gasped with shock the first time I did this because the light reflect from my cheekbone was so strong, it looked like I had applied five times the amount of highlighter that I normally would. This is also when I noticed that there were pieces of glitter in the formula. I can barely even express just how LOUD the highlighter looked swirled together. If you’re looking for a booming highlighter – this one will definitely deliver.

Final Thoughts

In terms of the Too Faced Rainbow Strobe Highlighter delivering a rainbow effect on my face… I’m not totally sold, but for me that’s because I wanted something a little bit stronger in pigmentation. However, this product really shines when you swirl the whole thing together. The highlighted effect is really, really strong that way, obnoxious even! Just be aware that there are glitter particles in it (that doesn’t bother me, but I know not everyone is keen on that).

The Too Faced Rainbow Strobe Highlighter can be purchased on sephora.ca for $38 CAD or on sephora.com for $30 USD.

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