 Hey guys, what is up? Welcome to my channel. For today's video, I have another holiday makeup release review. I'm going to be reviewing the new Hourglass Ambient Lighting Pellets that come out every year for the holiday season. So if you want to see my thoughts on these, as well as get comparisons between the two and all of that good stuff, then just keep watching. Hi guys, if you're new here, my name is Morgan. I am a pirouette acknowledge enthusiast. I just love knowing anything and everything about all the new makeup on the market and sharing my thoughts with you guys. I let you know in my most recent shop or drop that I was planning on picking up both of the Ambient Lighting Pellets for you guys so that I could compare them and really show you guys what is up with these. Right now, both of these pallets, as well as a third pallet, are available on the Hourglass website. And I believe one of these pallets and the deeper trio is available at Sephora right now. So I picked these up from the Hourglass website. I got them so quickly because I paid for overnight shipping and they really came very fast. Even I'm impressed. It really was overnight. Normally it takes a second night to get to me, so great shipping on Hourglass as part. And I will say, if you are going to order these, the powders themselves are quite soft and they can break easily. I do recommend ordering from Hourglass because they pack their makeup much more protected. There's those paper straws everywhere and it just was very, very safe. I felt like my powders weren't going to break while at Sephora. You know, they pack them with like two pieces of paper. My stuff breaks in the mail all the time from Sephora. So in terms of getting your product in one piece, I think Hourglass shipping is a lot more reliable. So let's get into the holiday releases themselves. For this holiday season, Hourglass released two pallets that are typical to their normal holiday. They edit pallets and they also released a trio that is catered to deeper skin tone. So quickly I want to talk about this trio right here. I didn't pick it up because I wasn't going to use it. I couldn't get it to work for me no matter what. But this is called the Ambient Lighting Pallet. It's volume three, so they've come out with two. I use volume one in my makeup kit. I absolutely love it. And this pallet is significantly darker than both of the pallets that came out in this holiday launch. Honestly, really excited about it. It looks really, really good for deeper skin tones. I know Victoria James and Glam Girl Chelsea both said that they were going to review it and they have deeper skin tones on myself. So definitely subscribe to them and check out their reviews on this. I can't wait to watch them to see how this pallet works out. And surprisingly right now there are no other holiday kits available. Adjust the pallets. Normally Hourglass does release other makeup kits of like lipsticks and other products that they have in their line. I'm sure that might be later to come in the holiday season, but these three pallets are here now. So I picked up both as you can see of the Lighting Edit pallets. I pick these up every year. I love these pallets, but if you pick them up every year like me, they definitely are starting to get repetitive. But let's take a deep dive into these. So right now I'm assuming these are a limited edition because the website says this is going to be available for the holiday season, which is starting right now. Well, the holiday season is starting in the makeup world, not like the real world. But anyways, so both of these are going to be $80. These are called the Universe pallets. The name Universe and the design of the pallet are inspired by the unique swirled texture of powders. So for the lighter one right here, it's going to channel celestial glow. And for the deeper one, this is a swirl texture of the bronzers, which is handmade using an advanced micellar. Oh gosh, I don't know. Technique, meaning no two powders are exactly alike. And I don't know, I feel like it looks weird having this kind of pattern on packaging. I don't think it's very pretty. Like this one looks dirty, the bronzer makes. And somebody said that the light one looks like bacon, and I can't unsee it. This looks like a raw piece of meat. Anyways, not my favorite outer packaging from them. I see what they were going for, but not my favorite. And these are a bit different than the previous pallets that have launched, which are like a heavy duty plastic. These are metal. Can you hear that? They're like a nice sturdy metal. And they open weird because this whole top comes off, whereas let me show you last years that you see that the, this part right here is part of the bottom and the lid is smaller than the base right here. This year's, and I keep trying to open them like the previous years, but this year's you see the whole top. Does that make sense? Are you picking up what I'm putting down? Anyways, also what's different about this year's packaging is it's a magnetic closure as opposed to a snap closure. I like the magnetic closure. I think it makes it feel more luxurious. Yeah, I mean, I'm talking in terms of just packaging right now, but you can see the differences in the packaging and how this is like metal. And anyways, yeah, different style of packaging this year. Obviously kind of same size though. So subtle differences, but I don't know. I just wasn't expecting it. Anyways, you couldn't tell in the pictures that it was this type of packaging. We are going to first start off by taking a look at the lighter of the two. This is just called the universe palette. Like I said, these are $80 each with each of these palettes. You are going to get five shades. So let's take a deeper dive into what these five shades are. So right here in the first place is a finishing powder, which is the infinity powder. This is a re-release. They launched this formula last year. And what it is is it's three shades of the ambient powder in one. Diffuse light, dim light and hypnotic strobe light. Honestly, I'm not a fan of this powder. It's weirdly shiny on the face. It's like not shiny enough to be a highlight, but it's also too shiny to be a setting powder. So it's an awkward kind of formula. Not really a fan of this and I don't think this sold well. So I wonder if that's why they put it in this palette. Just speculation. I don't know, but I don't like this powder. But the rest are brand new powders never released from Hourglass. So this is the only one that you might already have in your collection. And if you don't, you're not missing out. So up here we have the ambient strobe lighting blush in vibrant heat. This is a vibrant pink and the formulation hourglass uses a lot of the same words to describe their names and their formulas, but there will be one subtle word kind of put in there to differentiate the formulation. So the strobe lighting blush means that this has a little bit of shimmer in it. Then we have just this is just the regular ambient lighting blush. So no strobe in there. This is luminous rose. It is a soft plum and this one is a little bit more sheer, but it has some subtle glitter reflex in there. And then up here we have the ambient lighting bronzer in glistening bronze light. And then finally right here we have the ambient strobe lighting powder in supernatural strobe light, which is a champagne color. So right now you guys can see on this screen close-ups of the swatches. Now with Hourglass you will find that the swatches on them aren't very pretty. Really what looks gorgeous is when they are on the face, how they sit on the face. So I definitely want you to pay attention to the demo. We are going to get nice and close. So in case you are wondering about anything that I'm wearing, it will be linked in the description box. What I know you guys are going to ask about on my eyes, I'm wearing the Colourpop It's a Mood palette. I'm playing with this for the second time and I really like it you guys. It's such a good palette. I use most of the colors in this first column right here and then I use this green as well, but anyways that's what's on my eyes. It's stunning. Back to the good stuff. So I'm going to demo for you the infinity powder for you. I do have a setting powder on, but this one I just want you to see. I'm going to put it right here. So you see how that added a very subtle glow. I wouldn't necessarily call this a finishing powder because it gets too glowy as you put it over the face. Instantly my texture was emphasized and this is what I mean by it's an awkward powder because I think it looks terrible all over my skin. It doesn't blur anything. It just makes me look more textured and honestly there's very very very fine glitter particles and it looks pretty right here as a highlight. I'm not going to lie. It's really a subtle highlighter and you can use a denser brush to kind of build it up but I normally want a little bit more for my highlight. So I feel the need when I use this on the high points of my face to put an additional highlighter on top of it which then causes it to lose its purpose. Not my favorite formula. Not really happy about them adding this powder honestly. I would rather them have added one of their normal setting powders not this. Let's move on to the bronzer here. With the glistening bronze light and golden bronze I've not tried this. This is a brand new bronzer. I'm using a refer number five brush. Let me show you. Just dipping in here. This is pretty. Honestly this bronzer can definitely work on medium skin tone. See it has a really warm turn to it and it almost has some rosiness to it. So if you like a little bit of rosiness in your bronzer this is gorgeous it's going to look really good with a warm toasty rose shade all over the cheek as the blush. Those two would blend together really nice. I like this bronzer. Honestly I don't think I have a bronzer that's this color. So if you have a collection of the hourglass bronzers this is definitely a nice unique bronzer shade and it does give that slight sheen so it's not flat but hourglass powders aren't flat to begin with. Alright let's play with the blushes. So I'm going to start off with luminous rose because this one is a little bit more sheer. Let me show you. I'm going to put this more towards the back of the cheek and this blush goes perfectly with the bronzer in that it's that toasted kind of rosy tone. As per usual with hourglass blushes it applies beautifully. I don't see any glitter particles just the beautiful luminous glow that hourglass gives you with their products. I'm going to wipe off my brush. And now I'm going to use the vibrant heat which is that strobe formula. We'll see. Yeah so you can definitely see this gives more of a glow to the skin than that first blush that we use. It is slightly emphasizing texture but that's what you get when you use a luminous blush like this. And this is going to be a great gateway into the highlight. So I like that I use the plum shade towards the back to blend into the bronzer because the two undertones are very similar. And then this blush is great right on the apple to give some brightness to bleed into what will be our highlight. And as per usual flawless application. Okay lastly let's get into the strobe lighting powder which is super natural strobe light. I can see this has a little bit of champagne in it. I'm using a rougher 27 brush which is an eyeshadow brush but that's beautiful. It has a little bit of a rosy turn to it. It's a champagne shade but it's slightly rosy to go with the blush and bronzer. I mean that's beautiful. The formulas in here aren't crazy metallic by any means but they do have that soft luminosity that our glass gives. This is gorgeous. I really like this palette. Honestly I like this way better than last year's. Let me show you last year's. This is the lighting edit sculpture. First of all look how light last year's is compared to this year's. I will say there was six powders in last year's and five powders in both of the palettes this year. I prefer the six. I feel like the value is a little bit better or a lot better. You can get more colors so I'm sad that they did that. In terms of the color story this one is way better. It's a little bit more versatile in my opinion. Right away I like this palette better than last year's. But it's gonna get even better because I believe they've taken the feedback and they are going to cater to more skin tones by coming out with more than one palette. So I'm really happy to see that. So this is the universe unlocked. So the one with the unlocked word at the end is going to indicate that it's the deeper palette. And like I said remember this is that marbled print of the swirl textures of bronzers as they say. And here is the back and something I forgot to mention. I can't believe I forgot to mention this. But as every year these have a 12 month shelf life and are made in Italy. Let's take a look at the colors. Now this one has two re-released colors and three new colors. I wish they would just do all five new colors. I don't know why they want to go back. They do this every year. They always have colors that are in their permanent line in these palettes. I just want them to be all new. And with this one unfortunately there's two colors already in their permanent line and only three new shades. Here are the colors. So the re-release shades are going to be the ambient lighting powder in radiant light which is a golden beige. And then this bronzer is a re-release which is the ambient lighting bronzer in radiant bronze light. So these blushes one, two and the highlights are new. Take a quick look at the swatches. You can see that this one is definitely deeper. I think that the area of concern for this palette is going to be the bronzer. I am going to do a demo on this side of my face. Obviously I don't expect this one to look as good as the other one because this palette hopefully is not made for me. I mean that's the intention right. The formulations are a little bit different as well. This shade right here the ambient lighting powder. They had that mixture in the lighter one of the three different shades. This is just a solid color which I much prefer. So obviously these aren't going to look as good on me. I tested this on my mom before I filmed this so that I could give you a little bit more feedback on how this would work on a deeper skin tone. So my mom is NC40. She can go NC42 in the summer. So NC40 to NC42 I tested this on her. So I'm going to tell you step by step how each color worked on her skin tone. So the ambient lighting powder. This was a beautiful glowy setting powder on her skin. If you use a less dense brush this isn't going to give you that bright color that you see here. It disperses almost translucent and just gives a beautiful glow. So medium to tan skin you're fine. But if you do want to especially if you have a deeper skin tone you can use this as a highlight by using a more dense brush. And really concentrating on the color and the high points of your face are going to get more of a highlighter effect. So it is versatile in that sense. There are two blushes. They're both the ambient lighting formula. So in the lighter powder there was a strobe blush formula that gave a little bit more glow. These are just the regular blush formula. Both of these I honestly honestly believe are going to work on deep skin tones. Very vibrant on my mom's face. Both of them they still blended beautifully. So this worked on her medium to tan skin tone. I think it's going to work all the way down the line to deep. I genuinely do these have a lot of pigment and if you're on the lighter side they will still blend easily because they are the hourglass formula. The bronzer. Radiant bronze light I will tell you this is the one that I wasn't too sure of. One of my mom's favorite bronzers. She already had this in a single in her collection. It looks great on that medium to tan skin tone. It pulls a very gorgeous golden color on her skin tone. I don't know about this on deep skin tones. I don't think it's going to work but I think it'll work up to a tan skin tone. Alright take this with a grain of salt because I haven't tried it on a deep skin tone but I know it works on my mom. And then finally we have a metallic strobe lighting powder. There was not a metallic strobe lighting powder in the lighter palette. The metallic one is really good. I'm happy there's a metallic shade in here. So this is solar strobe light. It's a metallic champagne. My mom was actually worried this was going to be too deep on her. It wasn't. It looked beautiful on her. But I do think this is going to work for a deep skin tone as well. General hourglasses highlighters aren't too pigmented at the base. They blend out almost translucent with that glow and finish. So I think it's going to work up to a deep skin tone. So point being if you have a deep skin tone I don't know about the bronzer. I don't think the bronzer is going to be the best. But I think everything else is really good and I really do think that this is a versatile palette. I'm going to use it on my skin. It's not made for my skin so I don't know how this is going to look. Sure it's going to look way better on my mom. But we're going to start off with the radiant light setting powder. And you'll see this is translucent so this is going to work on me. And this looks way better than the setting powder in the light palette if I'm being honest. It's hard to see because hourglass isn't really about how it looks in camera. It's more so about how it looks in real life. That's where hourglass shines. But this blurred the skin added a nice sheen. I like this way better than the setting powder in the lighter palette that I tried. And I really do think this is a versatile color itself. It's going to work on a lot of different skin tones. Okay let's go to this bronzer. This bronzer is going to work on me. I've tried it before. This is a nice bronzer. And the fact that it works on me should tell you that probably won't work on a deep skin tone. If you use a denser brush I really believe this is going to fit up to a tan skin tone. Maybe on the lighter side of tan but the thing with hourglass is if the color is deeper you can really blend it out to make it work for a lighter skin tone. That's really pretty. It doesn't have a rosy hue like the one in the lighter palette. Okay the blushes are going to be interesting because these I'm serious are very very pigmented. So we're going to start off with rose heat right here which is a deep berry. I'm going to like pop off as much excess as I can. And we're going to do the same technique where I keep this towards the back of my cheek. I mean I went really light and that's very very bright. I can make these work for me I'm sure but I will take a lifetime to get through it because you literally only want like three particles of pigment if you're light like me. And let's do this one. This one is a little bit less pigmented. This is coral flush which is a bright peony. It's a little bit more suitable for me than that other one. But you can see my cheek is very very bright with this one and I was going very light. So can I make it work? Sure it's actually really pretty but it's brighter if you don't like a bright flush and you're around my skin so maybe not for you. Okay then lastly we're going to do the metallic shrub which I'm excited about. I think this is going to be too deep on me but I want you to see the finish. Like you see that's metallic as opposed to this one. There's a very slight cast nothing crazy like I could go out in public wearing this palette but this side looks better. This side looks more suited to my skin tone. This side looks good too. I gotta give credit to the hourglass formula. The fact that this does work on me because their powders are so blendable and soft. But anyways, here's the two different palettes. I'm going to get myself together and I will share my final thoughts with you. So the next area that I wanted to cover are what are the differences between these two. As you saw in the demo there are a few differences in formulation here. I want to show you the side by side swatches and you can definitely see that the unlocked palette is deeper than the universe palette. Especially because of those blushes. Hourglass did a phenomenal job really differentiating the blushes between the lighter palette and the unlocked palette. The only thing that I wish they would have changed is the bronzers because I think the bronzers are kind of close. Let me do a side by side swatch. The tones are obviously different but you can see on my hand here. This is going to be the lighter palette. This is the deeper palette. Obviously the tones are really different but depth wise I would like to see a bigger differentiation in the depth for sure. That's the only area that they needed to improve. I don't know why they didn't do that. Because of this was just like two shades darker. It would have made all of the difference and made it very clear what palette was going to work for what skin tone. But that being said I will say that when this is on the skin though it does kind of adjust to your skin tone. So if you are a little bit deeper it still will leave something there. It looks lighter than it actually is. But other than that I think they did a good job. For myself and my skin tone if you are similar I definitely would recommend just the universe one. This one is much more flattering on me. If you are a medium skin tone or up I definitely recommend you go up to the universe unlocked. I think right at the NC38 and up this is a good one for you. NC38 and under this is a good one for you. And yeah I mean if you're on the fence you really don't know which one to get. I would say go with a deeper one because you can make it work because of hourglass formulation and how flexible they are. Now comparing it to last year the sculpture. I told you guys already this has six different formulations. The ones from this year are so much better. I think if you have this one I think that the new ones this year are different enough to justify having them. The blush colors are very different. The formulations are different. The bronzer colors are different. I don't think they're too repetitive in that sense but these are better if that makes sense. I'm just sad they don't have six colors. I'm super happy with these. I think they did a good job. It was a step in the right direction. Let me know your thoughts down below. I hope you guys found this helpful to you. Thank you so much for being subscribed to my channel and liking this video. Your support does not go unnoticed. Seriously those of you who comment on all my videos I know your names. Don't worry. Until next time stay tuned because I have more holiday palettes and reviews coming. I will see you guys in the next one. Have a good one.