Do you remember when the Sleek Solstice Highlighting Palette was one of the most raved about products on YouTube? I sure do! It was back in the hey day when highlighters weren’t as common and ones at the drugstore were nearly impossible to come by. It must have been about ten or so years ago that the British YouTubers (and anyone else who visited the UK and brought this palette home) were raving about Solstice non-stop. It was one of the most hyped beauty products I think I’ve ever encountered in the beauty sphere.
And I’m only just trying it out now.
I picked Solstice up when I was on vacation in England recently. I felt a bit silly to be honest… this palette had been out for years and was hardly anything new. I also have a drawer full of highlighters that will undoubtedly outlive me just because there’s so many of them. And yet, even after all these years, I wanted to know what the hype was all about.
Surprisingly, when I hauled it in my (GARGANTUAN) May haul video, most people said they didn’t love it. I was initially put off because of those comments and didn’t try this palette out for a while, expecting disappointment.
What’s interesting about Solstice is that it comes with three powders and one cream. I’ve always thought that was a weird thing to do with a palette. Over time the powders will definitely end up getting caught up in the cream, which always makes for a bit of a mess. But I’m not that at that stage yet, so they’re all mostly keeping to themselves.
Another unique aspect of this palette is that it has three of your more generic highlighters (champagne, yellow-ish and a rosy-gold) but it also has a purple. In an era when all highlighters were your basic shade of boring, a purple was something utterly unique. Nowadays most people wouldn’t blink an eye at a purple highlighter as they’re pretty common place… but back when this launched? Purple highlighters were nowhere to be found.
In practice, the highlighters swatch out with varying depths of colour and shine. The purple one is definitely the weakest in pigment, but I feel like that makes it a little bit easier to wear for those who can be a bit colour-shy.
The first shade I tried out was the cream, which I applied with my finger and blended it out. I felt like application was easy and smooth, but that the overall effect was quite subtle yet pretty.
The purple was definitely the least pigmented, although you may not necessarily think so from the shot above but that’s because I have a purple blush on underneath it. If you want to dip your toes into colourful highlighters, this would be one to try for sure.
The bottom left shade was quite bright and luminescent – a really pretty shade for pairing with yellow looks (which I’ve been rather enamoured with lately!).
And lastly, the rose gold shade was the most luminescent shade out of all four. This one has a massive amount of sheen to it, but I have to say it doesn’t come off much like a rose gold. It has a tendency to look more white on me than I was expecting given the colour of the pan.
Final Thoughts
I can see why the Sleek Solstice palette was hyped up so much many years ago, and I still feel like it’s a lovely palette today. I’m surprised so many people told me they didn’t think it was that good, because I found all of the products performed quite well on my face. Are they the most blinding, pigmented highlighters I’ve ever seen? No, certainly not, but I don’t always needs something that’s going to be able to signal spaceships in orbit. Are there more interesting palettes out there now? Certainly, but MOST of them aren’t at the drugstore for a reasonable price tag. Considering the time that this product launched (was it actually 10ish years ago?), I’m not surprised it ended up hyped up in the beauty community. Solstice is still on the market after all these years and therefore it’s certainly had quite a bit of longevity in the beauty market.
In short? I think it’s lovely. 🙂
