In a sea of international brands that somehow seem to always grab my attention, there’s a homegrown Canadian brand that I really need to start paying more attention to. That brand is Annabelle and they’ve been around as long as I can remember. In fact, I picked up my very first solid black matte eyeshadow from them decades ago when I wanted to dive more into goth makeup.

Relatively recently, Annabelle put out their Perfect Glow Highlighters. Good highlighters can be hard to come by at the drugstore, so I was eager to try these out. I was even more eager when I realized that they’re also priced around $10 CAD each. Canadian drugstore prices seem to creep higher and higher ever day and it’s not often that I feel I can actually pick something up under $15.

Annabelle says that these will provide a “provide a natural and luminous finish”. There are three shades total – I’m missing the white pearlescent shade called Topaz.

I was surprised at how much colour the Perfect Glow Highlighters had in a swatch. Golden Diamond was definitely what I would consider “appropriate for my skintone” – it’s a very, very pale gold with a decent amount of translucency (although you can definitely see colour!). Quartz shocked the heck out of me though! I had a feeling the powder would be much more sheer, but it comes across as a medium pink with a golden shift. Truthfully, I thought this shade would essentially be a blush on me instead of a highlighter.

In swatches, the Perfect Glow Highlighters did not have a ton of reflection to them (which kind of left me feeling a bit deflated), but, as we all know, swatches only tell half the story because holy cow was I ever surprised when I buffed it on to my cheeks and I suddenly had a beaming highlighter! The tone of Golden Diamond is absolutely beautiful – pale enough on me, but with enough colour to appear golden.

As I said before, I figured Quartz was going to be a blush on me. But once I buffed it on to my skin I quickly discovered it wasn’t as deep as I was expecting. I ended up layering blush on top of it, and then relayering Quartz on the blush so that I’d have a more dimensional look than just a shiny cheek. I’m still a little bit shocked that this works on me – especially since that swatch was SO dark! The reflection on Quartz is quite a bright pearl-pink, but it did also deepen up my blush a touch. I’m at a loss as to how this one works really because I really expected this one to be too dark on me!

Final Thoughts

I really need to pay attention to Annabelle more because these Perfect Glow Highlighters really surprised me! I often go into drugstore highlighter reviews expecting to be let down (there’s been a LOT of duds at the drugstore over the years), so when I find out something is actually good I end up being extremely delighted! I like that Annabelle is able to provide a good quality product for a reasonable price tag – this can be a frigging challenge in Canada as drugstore prices seem to be continuously on the rise. Out of the two I tried, I definitely liked Golden Diamond the most (seriously – what a gorgeous reflect on that one), but I like that Quartz worked for my skin tone as well.

Let me know if you’ve tried these out!

Annabelle Perfect Glow Highlighters can be purchased on shoppersdrugmart.ca for $10.49 CAD each (and they’re actually on sale for $5.99 right now!).

The products featured in this review were sent to me for consideration. Post contains affiliate links.