During my busy travels, I found myself constantly needing to downsize the amount of makeup I packed. Not only for space-saving reasons, but also because whenever I travel, I tend to not travel for pleasure. Most of the time, I’m running around doing errands, so I barely have any moment to put some colors on my face. Yep, the struggle is real. Add that with jet lag, and that’s when I start to fumble around, sleepy, disoriented, trying to decide which eyeshadow would look best (given the number of minutes I have), and that’s if I haven’t lost them somewhere already.

So, I made it a promise to myself to pack light and to carry beauty products that are more compact. You know, the all-in-one type. Luckily, with the Sephora Holiday Bonus Sale that happened a while ago, I was able to score some compacts that are made to be for full-face makeup. One of them is this Charlotte Tilbury Instant Look In A Palette in Gorgeous Glowing Beauty (75 USD). A lot of us fell in love with the Instant Look In A Palette since the time it was first released because it allows us to create an almost full-face makeup (sans lipstick, brow enhancer, and eyeliner) in a small handy palette. 

The shade for this holiday season is the limited-edition Gorgeous Glowing Beauty. It’s got a combination of matte and shimmery shades for the face, cheeks, and eyes. The compact itself is cruelty-free and it has five shades at 0.07 oz each, and two shades at 0.21 oz each.

1 Eye Brighten: shimmery rose gold, brightening/priming 

2 Eye Enhance: slightly shimmery coppery bronze, adds dimension 

3 Eye Smoke: matte maroon, adds definition to the eyes, and can create a smokey eye look

4 Face Bronzer: medium brown

5 Cheek Swish: shimmery champagne pink

6 Cheek Pop: slightly warm rose-pink, for the apples of the cheeks

7 Face Highlighter: shimmery luminescent gold

This palette will definitely be overused pretty soon. I love the whole look of it and I can truly get a complete makeup look with just this handy compact. Also, I can create different looks with this, going from a natural look to a nighttime glam. The shades may seem to be not as pigmented at first glance, but it is definitely pigmented upon swatching. The colors do somewhat vary in tone once applied to the skin. For example, the #6 Cheek Pop blusher is definitely much more pigmented once on the cheeks, and the #1 Eye Brighten seems to be quite shimmery and has a slight pinkish tone that tends to blend with my skin, so, with that, I use the #7 Face Highlight as my inner eye brightener. The #2 Eye Enhance is definitely well pigmented and enough to define the eyes or even create a smokey eye look. The #5 Cheek Swish seems to slightly blend with my skin tone as well and is quite close to the #1 Eye Brighten, so it doesn’t show as a blush on me, but it’s more of a cheek highlighter which I like to put on top of the #6 Cheek Pop for a nice subtle glow.

Overall, the look of this palette can go from natural to very glam. The tones are earthy yet dramatic, beautiful, and totally wearable. The shades stay for the whole day on my skin without using a primer, and there are no fallouts from the eyeshadows. This is one of those palettes that you’ll be constantly reaching for, and it’s also ideal for traveling, which is just what I need.

This palette is limited-edition and is still currently available at Nordstrom and at charlottetilbury.com

Have you tried this already? What are your favorite beauty compacts for traveling?

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