I thought of this title because most products take me a long time to decide how I feel about them. Whether my initial impression is good or bad, I always get the feeling that the results could be better if I test them under various conditions and with different techniques. So, that’s why it takes me quite a while to solidify my thoughts. However, with the two makeup items I’ll be featuring today, my thoughts haven’t changed from that first use and onward!

Charlotte Tilbury Unreal Skin Sheer Glow Tint Hydrating Foundation Stick in 12 Tan

First of all, what a mouthful of a name! Charlotte Tilbury certainly likes her over-the-top names and product descriptions on her website, but I’m not complaining. It’s funny to me.

I’m going to start off by saying that I do not use this product as a foundation. I’m an avid beauty YouTube watcher and saw a ton of reviews for this before it became available at Sephora’s Deutschland website (and on sale, hurrah!), so I saw how greasy looking this was on anyone who put it all over the face prior to powdering. Regardless of the reviewers’ opinions, I thought the glow looked beautiful on everyone, which is why I wanted to buy this…as a highlighter.

It’s important to explain that while I lived in Florida, I had dry/normal skin. Now that I’m living in Germany, with much less humidity (so drier air) and colder temperatures for the majority of the year, my dry skin issues exacerbated to the point where my natural finish foundations and slightly dewy ones look matte on me. Some of my products would turn glowier as the day went on while in Florida, thanks to sodium hyaluronate/hyaluronic acid, but moisture never broke through during German winter, no matter how long I wore them. The only foundation I have with me currently that makes my skin look glowy, but still takes several hours to happen, is the N°1 de Chanel Revitalizing Foundation.
My desire was to find a product that would give me glow at the very beginning, so I could enjoy my Chanel foundation more and start using my other foundations again.

That’s where this Charlotte Tilbury product comes to play. I’ve been using powder highlighters to try and get a glassy wet-skin looking glow. It’s a decent solution now that we’re in summer, but it’s not as effective when my skin is extra dry in winter (plus fall and spring really). I’ve always hated cream highlighters because they tend to be too emollient and remain dewy feeling on the skin, as well as disturbing my makeup underneath. Liquid highlighters I’ve used don’t disturb things as much and most dry down fully, but they also tend to look super shimmery or metallic, which can look too obvious/stark on a minimal makeup day.
I am so happy to say the Unreal Skin is the product I’ve been waiting for all this time!

It wasn’t too long ago that I reviewed Dior’s Forever Glow Star Filter, with the comparison to the Charlotte Tilbury Hollywood Flawless Filter. Dior’s product was the closest I’d ever come to perfection, but the drawback was having to use specific techniques to make it work because it’s technically darker than my skin tone and the next available shade up is too light. So, despite thinking I could stop looking for a glow product, I took one more chance by getting the Unreal Skin Tint.

I am typically within the 12 to 13 shade range of Charlotte Tilbury complexion products, depending on the line, as well as the time of year. I had a difficult time deciding whether to get shade 12, 12.5, or 13 in the foundation stick, but decided upon the lightest of the three since it’s a sheer and therefore flexible coverage product that I wanted to highlight with anyway. 12.5 could have possibly worked too, but I think I made the right call choosing 12. When I did a swatch with my finger and rubbed it in, the darker base color became visible. The lighter sheen and that base combine to form a better shade match for me than all the liquid highlighters I own. It never looks that dark when I put it on my skin because I use a brush to blend it in, which doesn’t completely remove the reflective layer. The difference can be seen in the top swatch of the third column of the photo below. I reapplied that swatch with my brush instead of my finger.

My reasons for preferring this product over the Hollywood Flawless Filter is that the color suits me better, the amount that I use is self-setting and dries down with almost no transfer, it looks more skin-like even though it’s a shinier and a more reflective product. It feels lightweight on my skin, so that I completely forget it’s there on minimal makeup days. Neither product disturbs my makeup underneath, but I’m impressed by the fact that I don’t have to warm up the product on the back of my hand first, nor rub the stick onto my brush bristles before applying it to my face. I can just drag the stick directly onto my skin and then blend it out with my brush without ruining even my KVD Good Apple Concealer, which notoriously doesn’t play well with a lot of my products.

The left photo has no bronzer, no highlighter, and just a thin layer of the Chanel foundation. The right photo has the Armani Bronzer on and the Charlotte Tilbury stick as highlighter on the cheekbones and above the brow. There’s also the tiniest bit on the cupid’s bow, chin, and nose.

The Unreal Skin looks a bit more pearly in photos than in person, but it’s also more detectable without blush. I used a combination of a Glow Play blush and Powder blush from MAC in the photo below and then it took on a more natural appearance, despite having applied the CT stick to such a large area on my cheeks (mainly for demonstration purposes). If I was going to use this product while skipping blush, I would have applied it more precisely to a smaller zone. I wanted to be able to show that even if it’s in a larger section of the cheek, using a powder product of any type on top will tone down the glow.

This is the completed makeup look. These last photos were taken a bit later when the sun wasn’t shining as brightly through the window, so I look a bit darker overall and warmer in color with the addition of blushes and bronzer built up. Plus, I usually skip wearing my Dior Powder-No-Powder for review pictures because Shade 5 warms up and slightly darkens on me too (I don’t have Shade 4 with me), but I wanted to depict what I interpret as a minimal makeup look and show how finishing powder differs from the CT glow on me.

I have to add that because of my dry skin, the type of skincare I use, and the small amount of the stick I end up applying, this product dries down enough that I don’t need to powder it. For those that use dewy primers, dewy foundations, have oily skin, or end up with thick skincare products that sit on top of the skin instead of fully sinking in, the results could be very different. Those that live in humid climates may also need to set it, which would diminish most of that shine.

Purely for testing purposes, I confirmed that using the Unreal Stick as a skin tint is too shiny for me. As a primer, putting a natural finish foundation on top (may as well be matte on me) tones down some of the shine. However, it’s still too much for my liking. Adding some face powder to strategic areas gave me the appearance of a natural finish foundation, but I still prefer how it looks when I just use this product as highlighter. Using it as primer makes the end result feel heavier on my skin and is just enough extra emollience to make the foundation transfer more heavily than usual, as my husband can attest to after I greeted him on the testing day!

The amount of glow in the completed look photo (in the neon tank top) might be too much for some, but I absolutely love it because I don’t get any shinier throughout the day. There was a heatwave and it was 87°F /31°C at the time I took those photos, but that didn’t effect the performance at all. The Chanel foundation does its thing and will make other spots more glowy, but I don’t get oily looking or greasy when I apply the amount that I do. This isn’t the type of product I think anyone would enjoy the look of when built up, unless it gets powdered after.

Technically, the Unreal Stick emphasizes texture, but it’s nearly negligible, especially for how glowy the product is overall. It’s not much of a problem for me because the areas I apply the product to aren’t wrinkly spots, though I do have some bumps and moles. I’m only mentioning this because it may be more of an issue for someone trying to use this product as intended, as foundation. In my case, I avoid applying it to my forehead, since the bumps there become more noticeable if it’s not powdered down (as seen in the maroon shirt photos).
I’m happy with this product because it still emphasizes less than many other highlighters I’ve used, and even less than the Dior Forever Glow Star Filter.

So, now, I can genuinely say that I’m finished looking for a skin-glow-aiding product. In the event that I notice any changes over time, such as the stick drying out in the tube or the product expiring before its 12 month period-after-opening, I will update this post.

The final aspect I wanted to mention is that the component isn’t weighty, but it’s not cheap feeling to me either. I heard some complaints about the packaging not being luxurious enough, but I see Charlotte Tilbury as a high-end brand and not completely in the luxury sphere. I think the packaging is pretty. I also think the component comes apart based on the rattling sound it makes when it’s not fully twisted down. I wouldn’t be surprised if there becomes a refill option in the future. Quite a lot of Charlotte Tilbury products are refillable.

Armani Luminous Silk Bronzing Powder in 110

This product has been out for a while now, but I really thought 110 would be too close to my skin tone and that 120 looked too much like a contour color, based on photos I’ve seen online. I still think 110 isn’t that far off from my skin tone in terms of depth, but the undertone makes it to stand out more. More specifically, on my bare skin it stands out a lot. On top of foundation, especially mine that are a little darker and more golden-orange, the color appears subtler. This bronzer can be intensified by building up a few layers though. I’m also glad it shows up significantly more than the Armani Luminous Silk Glow Liquid Bronzer Drops in 110 ever did!

No bronzer in the left photo compared to a normal bronzer application in the right photo. A heavier bronzer application can be seen in the Charlotte Tilbury section further up.

The section I used a few times, seen in the photo below, doesn’t look as sparkly compared to the untouched areas in the pan. I began to wonder if the shimmer ran all the way through the product or in smaller amounts the further down one goes. It looked like the sparkle was solely on the outermost layer, but after a few additional uses, I started to see shimmer again.
So, even though the very prominent gold specks can be partly rubbed away in the pan, it will return. What’s most important to me is that this powder imparts a sheen, which I love my bronzers to have.
I’m not a fan of obvious shimmer particles in places other than my eyes. However, like those “sequin” eyeshadows that are matte formulas with random shimmer specks that get flicked off the skin when blended in, some of the gold particles in this bronzer don’t stick to the face. If I’m not in a bright setting, the shimmer that does linger around isn’t that noticeable. So, I’m accepting of this, but I know in the back of my head it will remain a point against this bronzer compared to others in my collection that I love. This type of issue is why I ended up not keeping Yacht Life from Mented (matte with golden shimmer) over Vacay (warm tone pink leaning soft matte bronzer). Armani’s bronzer having a sheen, which Mented’s does not, is the saving grace.

I like the smoothness of the powder, how easy it blends in, the sheen-like appearance on the skin. It adheres well and doesn’t fade all day. I even applied this to my forehead while I was sweating and I was worried that my brush would create hard-pan on the surface or that it would look textured on my skin, but it applied normally. The powder is easy to pick up, even with my delicate squirrel hair brushes. I just lightly tap into the compact and can get plenty of product on the bristles. If I’m wearing a foundation that requires me to to build up this bronzer to get it to show, then I switch to a larger saikoho goat hair brush to pick up even more product, but it doesn’t necessarily need to be a dense brush.

The compact is pretty on the outside and has a big heavy mirror housed under the lid which makes the packaging feel weighty overall. It certainly exudes luxury to me. For size reference, it’s about two millimeters smaller in circumference than the Charlotte Tilbury Beautiful Skin Sun-Kissed Glow Cream Bronzer packaging.

The only drawbacks about this bronzer for me are the gold particles and the color. I wish it had slightly less of an orange tone, because it looks even warmer on my complexion once it’s actually on my face. That’s all. Otherwise, I have no complaints about the formula. It’s far too soon to rank it with my other bronzers, but what I can say is the consistency feels like a mix between a soft matte, like the Hermes, and the almost clay-like appearance of the Glowish and Hatice Schmidt Labs bronzers.
I don’t consider this a holy grail product, but I like it and I feel like it was a good purchase. I should preface though that I did not pay the full 52 Euros for it. I got it on sale for 37 Euros, thanks to an “Armani Cosmetics Promotion [for] Europe” via Selfridges.

I hope these reviews have been helpful. Thank you for reading!

-Lili ❤