With spring and sunshine finally here, I want to get my glow on. I’ve been loving looks featuring glowy highlights that get their punch from catching the light with a touch of glimmer, but not outright sparkle. A sort of optical effervescence, you could say—like champagne. A slight golden glow with dancing bubbles and a feeling of whimsy. And from that visual was born this absurdly simple-to-make Champagne Glow Highlighting Powder.
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This super-simple highlighting powder comes together in mere minutes; you’ll probably spend more time gathering your ingredients than making. A simple starch (I used cornstarch) forms the majority of the recipe, with some magnesium stearate and titanium dioxide improving adhesion (the titanium dioxide also adds a touch of brightening). A titch of silica microspheres gives the powder a wonderfully silky, dry-touch feel, and jojoba & vitamin E oils add some richness and keep the end product from being too floaty.
After that all that’s left is the addition of some gold and silver-white micas. I’d recommend a softer gold if you have it, but any combination of a gold and white-silver mica will yield something champagne-y. If you wanted to really amp up the glow you could use a colour-shifting mica that switches from silver-white to gold (or something else—the sky is the limit!).
When I first started working on this recipe I was using a little handheld flashlight-like grinder to blend everything together, but that really didn’t work that well. The silica and micas can’t go in the grinder, and with the small batch size I lost a lot to the threads of the grinding cup and the oils refused to incorporate. So, I went analog—I just put everything in a small plastic bag and smooshed it together. It worked like a charm. Bam. I love it when that happens.
The final powder is light, smooth, and lends the loveliest subtle, effervescent glow to cheekbones, brow bones, and anywhere else that could use a bit of champagne glow. I hope you love it as much as I do!
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Champagne Glow Highlighting Powder
1/4 tsp | 0.9g corn starch
1/32 tsp | 0.05g magnesium stearate
1/32 tsp | 0.12g titanium dioxide
1/16 tsp | 0.12g silica microspheres (USA / Canada)
1/8 tsp | 0.15g gold mica
1/8 tsp | 0.15g silver mica
2 drops jojoba oil (USA / Canada)
1 drop Vitamin E MT-50 (USA / Canada)Measure everything into a small plastic bag, seal it, and smoosh everything around with your fingers until the mixture is uniform. Transfer to a 10g (1/3 oz) sifter jar. That’s it!
To use, dust a light layer of powder over cheekbones, brow bones, and anything else that could use a bit of extra glow.
Substitutions
As always, be aware that making substitutions will change the final product. While these swaps won’t break the recipe, you will get a different final product than I did.
- As written in grams this recipe will make 1.5g, which fills about 7.5mL.
- You can use a different starch instead of cornstarch; arrowroot and wheat are great options
- You can use sericite mica instead of the silica microspheres; this swap would be a good idea if you have dry skin. You can also use half of one, half of the other.
- Don’t worry too much about your mica colours; something gold-ish and something white-silver-ish will yield a champagne-y colour
- You can use a different liquid oil in place of jojoba as long as it has a long shelf life; something like fractionated coconut oil would be a good choice
I watched on of your videos the other day and you mentioned you where or had taken a course. I was hoping I might ba able to get the information from you. I am always wanting to learn new things I creating my own products that are just for me would be amazing.
The course is via Formula Botanica 🙂
Ohhhhhh I love this colour! But…. I need to find me some of those iridescent mica’s and make this with those! I guess I need to pick up some makeup containers when I move too!
OOoooh yes! You are going to have way too much fun shopping in the UK haha.
Marie, just made the champagne highlighter powder. Baaam amazing. Thank you
Barb
Wheee! I’m so glad 😀 Shimmer away!
Hi Marie,
I have watched some short videos of Formula Botanica, and i want to ask you if you really recomend taking those classes.
I saw a short video of making a lip balm and it looked too simple. Nothing new to me!
Do you recomend it?
Stay tuned for my full review—I think it is a good course so far, but as with all products it’s good for the right student and the right situations. I’m not yet done the course so I don’t want to say too much until I am 🙂
Looks pretty! I wish you’d posted swatches!
I apply it in the video 🙂
Which TKB micas did you use? I see from the pics that one was Satin White. Was the other Cinnamon and Sugar or something like that?
That one is Natural Yellow, which has been discontinued.
Hi Marie, I’m planning to make this when I get the chance, with more mica for some extra shine. Do you think this would be able to be pressed into a mini tin, with the added mica to retain some shimmer and opacity? Thank you!
Hey! Probably, though you’ll likely still need some added binding ingredients to get it to press well 🙂 Happy making!
Hi Marie, are silica microspheres the same as silica? TKB trading describes silica microspheres pretty much the same as New Directions describes silica ‘Silica is useful to increase the viscosity of water-in-oil emulsions. A higher than 3% level will overcome the “greasy feeling” to leave a “dry skin feel”. Silica contained in foundation will absorb sweat and oils from the skin which helps the applied makeup last longer on the skin and also reduces light reflection. Silica improves the smoothness and spreading of foundations and creams.’ and it sounds like your description of silica microspheres, how are they different? Thank you so much I am not able to find information that distinguishes between the two as they are both SiO2, silicon dioxide
That does sound the same! I’d cross-reference the particle size to see if they’re in the same range, and if they are close I’d go for it!
Good news! They are in the same size range! The only thing I am questioning is that New Directions has silica as $6.60/100g, and TKB Trading sells theirs for $3.00/6g, but they are described similarly and have similar particle size so I will go ahead and buy it! XD. Thanks Marie
Score! It looks like the 6g size is TKB’s sample size, and I find you usually pay a premium for sample sizes—if you look at anything else they sell a sample of you’ll see the price per gram is way higher for the sample size than larger sizes 🙂
I have made this recently and OMG I love the shimmer it gives!!
I do however have a question, I noticed that when applying the powder it has a lot of white in the base (from the powders- cornstarch, magnesium, titanium dioxide and the silica) which is fine for someone that has fair skin like myself but if I was to make it for someone with tan or dark skin the white would be very prominent. Any suggestions to tone down the white base?
Thank you!!
Oh, love wearing this gorgeous highlighter! I was looking for powdery highlighter and decided to give this a go as written. I used ultra silk mica (extender W) instead of silver mica and it worked great. It is more shimmery than silver mica I’ve seen you using but it contains titanium oxide and is cheap so I like it. I like to apply it on top of your cream foundation – my oily skin likes it during summer.
I’ve paired it with your shimmer eye shadow and I love the endresult! I was slightly hesitant at first to wear shimmery eye shadow but it has great wear time, it’s easy to apply and it isn’t too sparkly for my taste. Thank you tons!