Tom Ford Illuminating Highlight Pen - Review

Tom Ford in his own words:

The Illuminating Highlight Pen allows you to enhance, contour or diminish your features to create the appearance of symmetry. The range includes eight highly micronized shades: four tones that catch the light and bring focus to the cheekbones and eyes to create balance and symmetry and four tones that act as skin-priming concealers to diminish flaws and shadows. All eight tones work to soften and diffuse light for a smooth and undetectable finish.

Cost in Ireland Euro 55 for 3.2ml.  Available at Brown Thomas in Dublin

Tom Ford’s Illuminating Pen in the shade 05 Naked Bisque

I bought the Tom Ford’s Illuminating Pen in the shade 05 Naked Bisque, which I would describe as a matte ivory/nude beige shade with pink undertones, and this shade would suit most lighter to medium skin tones.  Generally speaking I don’t find the whole color selection to be great or extensive, so there are eight shades available in total, which four of them are shimmery and can be mixed with the other four matte shades for an illuminating effect.  05 Naked Bisque is one of the lightest matte shades. I find the other shades to be too dark to give any illuminating effect, and this was the reason why I bought the pen in a first place, but they would be great for color correcting, especially if you have dark under eye circles.

The texture is quite thick and pigmented but yet smooth, and it goes on very evenly, almost invisible. As mentioned before, it is quite matte, with a slight sheen, and it does slightly brighten the skin, but if you're looking for lots of shimmer or need loads of coverage and concealing, this products won’t do it.

 One thing I like about this pen is that is does photograph beautifully, and I have used it few times in my recent photo shoots, the only problem is that the price is unfortunately not makeup kit friendly.

It comes in a thicker than the usual pen form with the typical brush & twist up applicator to release the product.

To be perfectly honest I prefer YSL Touche éclat over this pen, because it’s more illuminating and brightening. For more coverage with illuminating effect I like and can highly recommend Mister Light by Givenchy or if you are on a tight budget try the Catrice Re-Touch Light-Reflecting Concealer.

Overall, for 55 Euro I really expected this to be amazing product, I wanted it to be all singing and dancing Illuminating Pen, but it just didn’t cut it for me and I am afraid I won’t be repurchasing. I am not saying that this is the worst product I have ever tried, as it might be perfect for someone else, but given the price, I just expected it to be better.

Have you tried Tom Fords Illuminating pen? What do you think? Please let me know in the comments!

xxx Marina

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