Non-Surgical Eye Lift: My Must-Have Highlighter

Posted 01/03/12 at 08:49AM by Total Beauty

You know you're getting old when...there is no punch line here folks, it's more of a fill in the blank. For me, the biggest indicator that I'm more of a late-summer chicken these days is the fact that my eyelids seem to be caving in on themselves. Seriously.

A year or two ago I started noticing that every time I applied mascara, I'd end up with some smudged on my top lid. At first, I thought I was just being careless with my application, then, I realized that it was because my upper lid was sagging and interfering with the wand. Lovely.

That's when I started wearing those cotton headbands. You know, the ones that sort of pull your hair and your forehead back? (They really do seem to impart a mini-lift effect.) That's also when I happened upon an article in some women's magazine that extolled the virtues of Benefit ooh la lift, $22. The piece claimed that, when artfully applied, the "highlighter" would really work to fake an eyelift.

Since I had nothing to lose -- there's no way I'm going under the knife for something so vain (well, not yet anyway) -- I ran right out to Sephora and picked up a tube.

The instructions seemed simple enough, simply dab a few dots of the "light reflecting" highlighter wherever you think your eyes need brightening and blend. Luckily, I've never had to contend with dark under eye circles, so I can't speak to its efficacy at covering them, but I can say that the oh-so-subtle pink shimmer of this cream in a tube really does help make my upper eye look more open!

Add to that happy result the fact that it felt smooth and silky as it went on and lasted the whole day and I had a new bff in the makeup department.

Now, I'm not saying that I look all bright-eyed and ingenue-y all the time because of a little highlighter, I'm just saying that it takes less than a minute to apply and really does make a difference. Not too many things you can say that about, right?

Have any must-have favorites you'd like to divulge? C'mon, your secret's safe with us.

And the survey says...

1-6 of 8 Comments

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Posted by EricaC123 on 12/29/12 at 04:47pm

Nice

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Posted by powerwoman033 on 03/14/12 at 12:50pm

These tips are right on! You can't use shimmery eyeshadow instead of highlighter. Eyeshadow will crease and it won't last. Highlighters are specially formulated with the correct amount of light to give the right effect. It is specifically made to stay on where you put it (eyeshadow is for eyelids) and you CAN tell if you use it instead of a true highlighter. Some less expensive highlighters are the Mary Kay® Facial Highlighting Pen for $18 or the ELF Studio Radiance Enhancer for $3 available at Target. Keep in mind with these articles that for every product mentioned, there is a higher priced one and a lower price one. Go to Total Beauty, type highlighter into the search engine, and then find the product and price that suit you the best. Thank you for this article because the right highlighters can take 10 years off of a face if applied correctly. .

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Posted by jenn8779 on 01/11/12 at 01:02pm

The advice in this article is excellent and does work. However, for the majority of us, you know those of us who have been hit by the economy unlike the blogger, yes, you can use a cream eye shadow, shimmery powder shadow or anyone of about a dozen much less expensive highlighter products.

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Posted by venenumletalis on 01/03/12 at 12:55pm

this seems to be one of those products that can easily be replaced with something like regular shimmery eyeshadow or highlighter. Also, 22$? Can buy a nice wrinkle-fighting moisturizer with more benefits instead.

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Posted by LipglossandSpandex on 07/17/11 at 04:11pm

...couldn't you just use a light shimmery eyeshadow? Like one most gals probably already have in their makeup bag? I love Benefit, but a lot of their products seem to be unnecessary or redundant, even within their own line.

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Posted by Bon_Bon on 02/21/11 at 01:55pm

sounds awesome I think I'll get some!!

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