Illamasqua Gleam in Aurora Reviewed

Another of my Illamasqua sale purchases! Gleam is a product I had been lusting after for a while in the shade Aurora which is a heavenly pearlescent champagne colour. It really is a magical shade.
Gleam is Illamasqua's answer to a cream highlighter designed to be able to be used on both face and body and is available in 2 shades; Aurora and Supernatural which is a deep bronze tone.

The Gleam comes in the stylish classic Illamasqua packaging, and is slightly larger in size than the blushers, weighing in at 6.5g of product. The flip up lid is easy to use without feeling like it would come loose in your handbag and the compact also feels nice and sturdy. It does bug me that the light cream shows up so much is it gets on the black case but thats just me being a neat freak! The highlighter is also a good size to either dab with a stippling brush or with fingers which is a nice bonus and something I miss with highlighters such as High Beam (Benefit) or Feeling Younger (Lush) so it does feel nice and versatile.

Wear wise, I like to dab this around the outside corner of my eyes and along the cheek bone and as you can see in the photo above, it reflects the light really nicely and gives a nice glow without looking too much. I've found that I like to dab with my fingers best because you can achieve a nice soft, subtle look easily, but I do buff out with a brush lightly after if I feel I've been a little heavy handed. The colour also looks pretty highlighting the brow bone, but this doesn't show very well in my photo, oops! I find that the colour doesn't fade really during the day and I arrive home with the same healthy glow visible as when I first apply so I'm more than happy with the quality. At £18 this product doesn't come cheap but I have completely fallen in love with it and think that for the quality and how little is needed per use, the price isn't as bad as you might originally think and I would happily replace this when it runs out.
You can pick up a Gleam compact here from the Illamasqua website :)

So what do you think? Pretty eh? Would you be able to justify buying yourself?
Annie xx