This $8 Highlighter Is Just as Good as (If Not Better Than) Some of My Expensive Ones

In an attempt to KonMari my beauty stash, I found that the most difficult products for me to part with were my highlighters. The hyperreflective powders, creams, and sticks had taken up so much space on my vanity because I loved each and every one of them for what I thought were different reasons. It wasn't until my friend said, "They look exactly the same," that I admitted to myself that he was right: I was looking at a sea of similar golds and champagnes. So when I came across the Sleek Makeup Highlighting Elixir ($8) in Champagne, I thought, "There's no way I need this in my life."

I still swatched it (that's my job, after all). I'd seen Redditors' glowing comments about the brand, and I had to know if this particular highlighter lived up to the hype. I dispensed half a drop onto the back of my hand and swiped my finger across it to find that it was extremely pigmented. I tapped another half drop onto my cheekbones and let it set into its powdery finish. The result was an intense glow — the kind of glow people only really get from having a ring light in front of them — that would not move.

Sleek's rendition of champagne made me reassess the highlighters on my vanity. Somehow it made parting with them that much easier.