Review: Tarte Tarteist Pro Glow Highlight and Contour Palette

Hi everyone! Today I’m doing a review of the Tarte Tarteist Pro Glow Palette, which I’ve had since last year. This palette wasn’t really something that was on my radar; if anything, I was more interested in the Tarte Pro to Go palette, which is a more compact palette with two highlighters and a contour shade that would have been great for travelling. I would not have purchased this face palette at all if it hadn’t been on sale, so you could say this is something that a sale sucked me into buying. Last year, I noticed that this was half off during one of Sephora’s Weekly Wow sales (and I think it went on sale again around July-August of this year). I figured that at 50% off, I could justify buying it.

I used this palette on and off this year – for the first half of 2018, I was trying to pan a Becca highlighter and a NYX contour so I didn’t get much use out of this face palette, but I’ve been spending more time using it in the last few months, so I can finally do a review of it.

THE BASICS

The Tarte Tarteist Pro Glow Highlight & Contour Palette is a face palette that contains four powder highlighters, one powder contour, and one cream contour. It retails at $59 for 6 pans that weigh 0.17 oz each, and is made in the USA.

According to Tarte, each shade has a “rich, cool undertone to mimic real shadow and light reflection for the most natural look. The highlighting powders deliver a buildable, micro-shimmer strobing effect, and the two universal, matte contouring shades add balanced dimension that can be worn alone or layered.” All of the shades are supposed to be highly pigmented and long-wearing. They’re made from Amazonian Clay, and similar to all of Tarte’s more recent palettes, this one has the subtle scent of vanilla.

THE PACKAGING

The Tarte Tarteist Highlight & Contour palette comes in black rubberized packaging with gold lettering. As pretty as the packaging is, any of you who’ve owned makeup with rubberized packaging know that it’s kind of messy to deal with after owning it for a while, because all of the powders stick to it. The product opens and closes with two magnetized “double doors” that holds mirrors on both sides. I find the mirrors a little impractical because the covers don’t really stay open on its own, so it’s hard to see yourself in the mirror while applying the product.

The bottom left contour shade is a cream product, and it’s a huge pet peeve of mine (and other people) when brands include cream products in the same palete as powder products, because all of the fallout from the powder products always get stuck in the cream product. WHY, Tarte, WHYYYY. I actually store this palette upright and actually find that there hasn’t been much powder from the top two highlighters stuck to the cream contour, but I still don’t think it’s a good design.

THE SHADES

I find it a little strange that Tarte describes this palette as a cool-toned palette, because I find that two of the highlighters are warm-toned. The palette offers range of shades that I think would be flattering for a good variety of skin tones, which I feel like is both a positive and negative point of the palette. On the plus side, there’s something in it for everyone because there are both lighter and darker highlighters, as well as both warm and cool-toned highlighters. On the flip side, if you’re using this palette for personal use, not all of these shades will work for your skin tone just because there’s such a wide variety; for example, those with really fair, cool-toned skin may find that Lit and Fire may be too warm-toned for them. This might be a good addition in a makeup artist’s kit, since they’ll work on a wider variety of skin tones. The shades included are:

Lit – Champagne highlight
Strobe – Pearl highlight
Fire – Bronze highlight
Stunner – Opalescent highlight.
Shade – Cream contour
Sculpt – Powder contour

Lit is a warm champagne that is very soft and powdery. It leaves quite a bit of kickback when I dip my brush into it, but it’s very pigmented and metallic. This might be a bit too warm for fair skintones, but I suppose it could also be used as a shimmery bronzer for those who enjoy using shimmery bronzers. It’s a really nice quality highlighter, but for some reason I don’t find myself reaching for it much.

Strobe is a pink-based pearl shade and looks like your run-of-the-mill highlighter shade, so I thought I could easily dupe it with something in my collection. In the pan, it reminds me of The Balm’s Mary Lou-Manizer, but when I swatch them next to one another, Mary Lou is a lot more yellow-based. This has a lot of kickback when I dip my brush into it, but is pigmented and applies smoothly on the face. I see a lot of glitter in the pan of this shade, which scared me off at first. The glitter does translate onto the face, but surprisingly, it’s doesn’t look like one of those glitter-bomb highlighters – it has these tiny micro-glitters dispersed within a satin finish highlighter. Still, I would stay away from this if you don’t love any glitters in your highlighters. I like this highlighter, but wouldn’t buy it if it was on its own.

Fire is a deep warm bronze. It’s more tightly pressed into the pan and doesn’t feel as soft as the other shades, which means less kickback. Applied to the face, it’s just as pigmented and smooth as the other shades. The shade itself is more or less passable on me in the summer, especially when applied more sheer, but too dark on me right now while my skin is more pale. I definitely don’t think this shade would work for very fair skin or individuals with cool-toned skin. I imagine it would be striking on dark complexions, though!

Stunner is a cool taupe and is my favourite highlight of this palette. Not only does does it have the most metallic, shiny finish out of all the highlighters in this palette, but the formula is very buttery and pigmented without having any kickback. I also find that this cool silvery-taupe shade to be really unique and unlike anything else I own in my collection.

I really enjoy both of the contour shades, which was surprising as I’ve never been a fan of cream contours. They’re both nice and cool-toned, so they don’t look too muddy when you put them on. I thought that the cream contour would be difficult to use, but it really isn’t. it looks dark and scary in the swatch, but of course no one would ever apply it so concentrated. I actually use the same brush for both the cream and powder contour – the Sephora Collection #55 Multitasker Contour brush (which is unfortunately discontinued). It has synthetic bristles so it works perfectly for cream products. How I use it with the cream contour is I stamp the brush into the product instead of using a swiping or swirling motion like you would for powder products, so that you won’t get too much powder on the brush. I can always layer more if I need to, instead of going too heavy right off the bat.

THE SUMMARY

Pros:

-High quality powders and creams that are smooth and pigmented
-Variety of shades for all skin tones

Cons:

-Rubberized packaging can get messy
-Cream and powder products combined into one palette is impractical
-Not all palettes are suitable for one skin tone if used for personal use
-Pricey

To be honest, I didn’t expect to love this as much as I do, but I was so pleasantly surprised by the quality of this face palette. However, as much as I have enjoyed using it, I don’t believe it’s a necessity in one’s collection, because 1) not all shades will work for a single skin tone, and 2) you’ll like some shades more than others. Have you tried this palette, and what do you think of it?