Charlotte Tilbury was ahead of its time in popularizing the concept to everyday makeup wearers that specific types of liquid highlighters could also be used as glowy primers, used alone or mixed with foundation, etc. Dupes have been released since then, but in 2023 and onward there was a boom of launches from seemingly every brand trying to make their version of the Hollywood Flawless Filter. Since I don’t use liquid highlighters enough, I professed in past reviews that I would not purchase anymore of these types of products. However, my skin became excessively drier since moving to Germany from Florida. Foundations that would normally give me a natural or slightly glowy finish were suddenly looking matte on me and staying that way all day. I want a product that gives a healthy shine to my skin so that I look less dry. Considering how much I’ve grown to enjoy Dior products, I decided to give the Forever Glow Star Filter a try when it was conveniently on sale on the Douglas website. I had a sample of the Glow Maximizer from a previous Dior order, so I’m including a review of that here as well.

The Star Filter color I purchased is 5N. This shade is a tad darker than my natural skin tone, and a little warmer, but it’s the closest match I have. I’m always in-between shades with Dior’s complexion products. 4.5W that I tried in the older formulation of the Backstage Face and Body Foundation was very much too light. I’m even between shades in their bronzer range (7 and 8) as well as powder (4 and 5). So, I always just settle for the closest one.

As seen in the picture above, no shimmer particles are visible on the skin under natural light. It just looks like it has a sheen, which is my ideal outcome. Under warm light, it has a natural, yet slightly shimmery look to it. Under white light, the shimmer is much more evident by comparison, but still quite refined. I would prefer if it looked dewy rather than shimmery in every kind of light, but I’ll take what I can get. So far so good!

I tried this on bare skin just in the highlighter spots. Because of the shade option, it has a slightly dark cast when viewed at angles not hitting a light source, but I don’t plan to wear this without any other makeup anyway. I just wanted to see and show how this product looks in the most minimal makeup situation and test if it dries down, which it does.

The next thing I wanted to see was how it would look if used alone (one the side of the face with the yellow arrow in the photos above) versus the other half that was devoid of any foundation. The darker color was apparent. I used a small amount when taking the photo, so it didn’t look as glowy as I’ve seen it can get when more than one pump is used. It gives light coverage, which was still more pigment than I was expecting. Although it looks pretty when used this way, it’s a bit much for what I’m trying to achieve. I want specific areas to look radiant and healthy, not for every inch to look shiny as though from sweat.

When testing how this product looks as a primer underneath foundation, I chose to pair it with the Hourglass foundation because that one notoriously looks dry and unappealing in the beginning, but looks much better after several or more hours when my natural oils start producing and mixing together with it. I wanted to see if the Dior Star Filter would help me look radiant from the very start and not have to wait 2-5+ hours.
Well, I could see tiny mica particles still underneath, but the foundation took the actual glow away when used on top of the Star Filter. It still looked better and less dry, but I suspected it wasn’t a necessary step, and that I could achieve what I wanted without using it all over the face, just in specific spots.

Adding the Star Filter back on top of the foundation in the typical highlighting spots confirmed again that it’s a little too dark on me. The shimmer itself isn’t too dark, just the base pigment used. From the frontal profile view, it looks a bit like a bruise on the other side of my cheek that didn’t have the Star Filter as primer under foundation, just as a highlighter over foundation. From the side profile view, as seen in the left photo below, that cast isn’t visible because light is hitting that spot and reflecting to make it look lighter. I could try mixing the foundation and Star Filter together to lighten the base color, but there’s too much coverage in both products, so I’d get a better color at the expense of diluting the glow. It would likely give me the same effect as the primer under foundation, which is not the finish I want.

Additional testing days confirmed that I could use this product as a liquid highlighter to make my skin look glowier, without putting it everywhere. However, I also realized my concealer placement was crucial because of the color depth differences and different finishes. Because my concealer is matte and the product looks shimmery, the spot where they met looked a bit harsh. So, I learned that I should add a little bit more concealer back on top to help blend the two products into each other.

I also felt that it looked better if I placed my blush on after using the Star Filter as highlighter instead of using it in the order I usually do (bronzer, blush, then highlight last). This way, the matte blush would have more of a blended gradient between the matte zone and where it turns dewy looking. I’m very glad this product dries down and can be applied with fingers or a brush (I didn’t test it with a sponge) and it blends in just fine and doesn’t disturb my makeup underneath (not even the KVD Concealer that usually breaks down quickly if other products get on it). So, as long as I wear blush and get creative with the placement of adding complexion products sparingly around the edges, the slightly darker base color isn’t as much of an issue. This product also works just fine when I add a powder highlighter on top of it, and helps hide the darker color even more.

Texture is emphasized a little bit more, but not as intensely as most other highlighters would make it.

I’ve done multiple wear tests, with one such example seen below. In that picture, at the five hour mark after sweating a lot from doing housework, the glow was just absolutely more than I wanted. It was very sweat apparent on the side where the Star Filter was used also as primer. On the other side, I was a bit less glowy. However, I didn’t mind how it looked in the areas that I used the Star Filter. The parts that had too much were from the foundation itself.

Dior versus Charlotte Tilbury

I still had my mini of the Hollywood Flawless Filter in the US, but I decided to order another mini here, just to make sure my comparisons of the two were accurate. It’s a good thing I did because this was not how I remembered! For some reason, the facts got morphed in my head thinking that the Charlotte Tilbury product had a slightly metallic sheen. This is not the case! The Auric Glow Lust that I reviewed at the same time HERE is the one that had a pearly/almost metallic kind of shine. In fact, the CT product is the one that looks dewy and wet rather than shimmery. This is more of what I wanted, except that it’s too much in that direction. It’s easy with this product to overdo it and look greasy instead of glowy. In addition, the Charlotte Tilbury product dries down 70-90% depending on what products are used underneath like a dewy primer or later in the day after the foundation breaks down a little and natural oils are produced. It’s also more transfer prone than the Dior Star Filter. The Dior product sets from 90% to fully dried down on my skin with little to no transfer. This is at least how it stands based on the various combinations of products I’ve tried. It is possible that the performance could worsen in a more humid climate, in hotter temperature weather, and when using other products.

The photo above shows how I used the Charlotte Tilbury Hollywood Flawless Filter on my nose and the top of my cheekbones sparingly. I do like how it looks. Ultimately though, I prefer something that sets more. This is why I stopped using the CT product, whereas I like Dior’s and will keep using this one when I want to look less dry.

A few other things to mention is that like everything I own from Dior, the Star Filter has the signature Dior scent that smells slightly powdery, floral, and soapy. I use so little product that I usually can’t smell it in the air or when it’s on my skin. Charlotte’s just smells like makeup.
The textures of both products are similar in the sense that neither one is a runny liquid. They have the consistency of acrylic paint, except that CT’s feels like it has more slip to it. The times that I’ve applied these with my fingers, Dior’s felt like applying a normal liquid foundation whereas CT’s felt like applying a cream-gel hybrid moisturizer.

For curiosity’s sake, I mixed a little of the Star Filter with a bigger portion of the Flawless Filter to see if I could lighten the 5n color that way. It worked, but it took on too much of the Flawless Filter’s consistency and remained partly dewy to the touch (though with less transfer). So, I still prefer to use Dior’s Star Filter by itself so it can set down. As long as I wear a blush with Dior’s product, the slightly darker and warmer color isn’t as much of an issue because the shimmer itself is light enough.

Dior Forever Glow Maximizer (Sample)

This product reminds me of the Star Filter in the consistency of the liquid, how it feels on the skin, how long it takes to set, and how well it blends into the skin. Where it differs is that this has more of a metallic look to it rather than the shimmer-sheen. The shade Rosy looks a bit strange to use as a highlighter on my skin tone, but it works if I pair it with a red blush like MAC’s Desert Rose or even Dior’s Rosy Glow Blush in Bronzed Glow. Rosy is also dark enough to use by itself as a shimmery blush shade, as seen in the photos above where I am not wearing another blush or highlighter with it (just bronzer).

Since I just have the sample, I’ve been limited in the amount of times I could test it (four times before this review). However, I can at least confirm that it’s similar to the Star Filter. For my own preferences and what I’m looking for (dewy looking and less like an obvious liquid highlighter), the Star Filter is a better product for me. Someone wanting a more traditional liquid highlighter that can be sheered out or used in a more impactful way that also fully sets/dries down will likely prefer the Glow Maximizer.

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That’s all for today! Due to the price, I don’t think I’ll be getting more of either product. I’m just going to make do with the 5N shade rather than trying to buy 4N and just hope it won’t have the opposite problem of too light of a cast or having to deal with mixing the shades. There’s also just so much product in these bottles, more than I could ever use up, so it would feel wasteful. Since what I own is good enough to deal with my dry looking foundation problem, I can get back to my assertion that I don’t need anymore liquid highlighters after this.

I hope you enjoyed reading this review and that you’ll pop back in next week!

-Lili ❤