Tony Moly Luminous Goddess Aura Aurolighter Review, Swatches, Demo

Rainbow highlighters was a huge thing back in 2016, which was just around the corner but it’s still weird to say “last year”.  I was quite surprised to see a K-beauty brand jump on gimmicky trends but Tony Moly picked up the trend and came out with their own rainbow highlighter.  Of course I wanted to try it for myself to see if it works or not, so here we are with this rainbow highlighter review.  Let’s go go go!!

Full name of product:
Tony Moly Luminous Goddess Aura Aurolighter

Limited edition/ Permanent?:
Permanent

Description of product:
“Rainbow color highlighter sparkles in various brilliant color depending on the angle of the light.
Aurora + Highlighter = Aurolighter
Rainbow Color
It has three functions according to the usage method.
(Highlighter, Blusher, Eye Shadow)”

Price:
19,800 won

Amount of product:
10 g

Duration before expiration:
24 months (2 years)

Country of Manufacture:
Made in Korea

Where to buy:
Jolse
Amazon

Ingredients:
Synthetic Fluorphlogopite, Talc, Mica; Sericite (CI77019), Titanium Dioxide (CI 77891), Cetyl Ethylhexanoate, Silica, Octyldodecyl Stearoyl Stearate, Diisostearyl Malate, Chromium Hydroxide Green (CI77289), CI73360; Red 30; Aka226; Vat Red 1; Red 30 Lake, Ultramarines (CI77007), Hectorite, Magnesium Stearate, 1,2-Hexanediol, Caprylyl Glycol, Phenoxyethanol, Fragrance, CI 77492; Hydrated Ferric Oxide; Yellow Oxide of Iron, CI42090; Acid Blue 9, CI 77499; Black Oxide of Iron; Ferrous- Ferric; OxideIron Oxides, Tin Oxide (CI77861), Diamond powder, Amethyst Powder, Nephrite Powder, Ruby powder, Amber Powder (Cucurbita Pepo (Pumpkin Powder), Tocopheryl Acetate)

How to use:
Take an appropriate amount with a brush and lightly apply on areas that need a brightening effect such as nose bridge, forehead, and cheeks.

Product packaging:
Packaging for this highlighter is pretty standard.  It comes in a glossy black circular compact with the word “luminous” on the front.  I honestly wish it had a little window so the rainbow could peek out.  It’s a rainbow highlighter!!  I need magic to shoot out of the lid haha.

To open up the compact, all you have to do is press the little button and viola.

Inside, there is a mirror that is actually a great size!  There is, of course, the rainbow highlighter itself :D.  So pretty!  So my game plan with this highlighter was, if it sucked on the face, I’ll just use it as a shimmery eyeshadow.  This is actually a great and compact way to bring shimmery eyeshadows since you literally have every single colour in the rainbow.

Colour/ pigmentation:
To my surprise, this highlighter is quite pigmented!  With one swipe, I get a true to color swatch.

The red, orange and yellow isn’t super duper pigmented but all the shades don’t scream COLOR anyways.  It’s more of a muted shimmer, but I kind of like it that way.

Blended all together, it looks decent but the blue makes the color too muddy for my liking.  It doesn’t look that bad here but when you scroll down and see my demo, you’ll see what I mean.

Texture/ Finish:
The press powder is nice and silky and the powder is easily caught onto the brush.  The only thing I do have to nit pick about is the slight fall out.  When you run your brush over the powder, there is decent fall out but I’ve noticed that would happen with even my high end products so it’s not that big of a deal.

Finish wise, these look just like what shimmery shadows would look like… shimmery LOL.  The shimmers is nice and small but dense, so it isn’t a chunky type of shimmery finish.  How many times can I say shimmery in one sentence haha.

Lasting power:
I didn’t really have a problem with lasting power with this highlighter. I like my highlight nice and subtle and not as strong as if I want to direct traffic on the freeway.  Nice.. and.. subtle.

Yea no.. not like this.  This was dramatized for special effects LOL. For me, I find it lasts about 6 hours before fading away and this is on top of un-powdered base make up.

Fragrance?:
Although fragrance was included in the ingredients list, I don’t smell any fragrance with this powder product.

Okay let’s try this baby out :D.

If you want to get the rainbow strips, you’ll have to use a rectangular brush like this one, preferably natural bristle hairs so it can pick up the powder better.

And……

RAINBOWWWWWWWW.  Seriously, this is pretty damn cool, I’m not gonna lie.

Excuse the red scab on my nose.  There was a century year old deep white head that had to be removed.  It had to be done I tell you!

Anyways, let’s try the highlighter all swirled together.  Do keep in mind, this is not how much highlighter I wear on a day to day.  Plus my regular highlighter is more flesh tone so it doesn’t look as dramatic as this blue-ish highlighter here.

The name truly suits the product.  “Aurora” is the word that comes to mind.

And here is a full frontal view of the highlighter worn in two different ways.

Pro:
-pigmented
-a great highlighter
-multipurpose (eyeshadow, highlighter)

Con:
-kinda expensive for K-beauty standards ($20)
-not an everyday product

Repurchase?:
Most likely not but it is a cool product.

Stars given out of 5:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Overall thoughts:
I’m very pleasantly surprised that this highlighter actually works as well as it did.  My impression on Tony Moly as a brand is that their products are more cute packaging and gimmicky then it working well.  To my surprise, this rainbow highlighter is actually amazing.  It’s on the slightly pricier side retailing at almost $20, but definitely not as expensive as some in the Western world.  I mean I guess it was pretty cool that Tony Moly picked up the trend and brought it in Korea because importing Western stuff there is super expensive, so good on them.  Overall this product is actually really good but I’d love to see some more wearable combinations, kind of like the Bobbi Brown shimmer bricks.  If that ever happened, I’d be all hearts <3.  Get this product if you want the novelty of it but don’t get it if you expect to use this everyday.

What do you guys think about this rainbow highlighter? I wish they did the packaging a bit more fun but the product itself is great so I’m not going to complain too much.  I’ll just stick some of my holographic stickers from my sticker book collection I still have from my childhood HAHA.