Charlotte Tilbury vs Natasha Denona: Which highlighter is best for a radiant glow?

We put these high-end make-up brands head to head to find out which product came out on top

If you’re determined for your cheekbones to be seen from space, we can help (iStockPhoto/The Independent)

There are so many highlighters out there that promise to deliver on glow and luminescence that it can sometimes be hard to work out which one is right for you. 

Which hue do you go for? Champagne, gold, or maybe a cooler silver? Should you try a liquid, stick or powder? The decisions are seemingly endless.

And yet, no matter how many are already out there, you’ll still find brands releasing more of this moonbeam magic. Because people love it.

Luckily for us highlighter obsessives, two of the biggest names in beauty – Charlotte Tilbury and Natasha Denona – have featured highlighters in their holiday collections for Christmas 2020.

Charlotte Tilbury attended the Glauca Rossi School of Make-up in London and went on to become a celebrity make-up artist to stars including Kate Moss, Kim Kardashian West and Amal Clooney. She also worked as a make-up director at Tom Ford, Alexander McQueen and Lanvin before starting her own brand.

Natasha Denona hails from Croatia, and, like Tilbury, is a make-up artist to the stars: her client list includes model Bar Refaeli and actor Gal Gadot. She used her 20 years’ knowledge of the beauty industry to launch her own make-up line in 2015, which is best known for its eyeshadow palettes.

Both Charlotte Tilbury’s Hollywood superstar glow and Natasha Denona’s “I need a nude glow” are powder highlighters with a champagne hue and, as well as launching close to each other, they have a similar price (though you do get slightly more product in the Charlotte Tilbury palette – 11.5g as opposed to 8g). So we decided to test them against each other, to see which we’d recommend.

You can trust our independent reviews. We may earn commission from some of the retailers, but we never allow this to influence selections, which are formed from real-world testing and expert advice. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.

Charlotte Tilbury Hollywood superstar glow highlighter: £39, Charlotte Tilbury 

(Charlotte Tilbury)

Charlotte Tilbury’s filmstar bronze and glow is one of the brand’s cult favourite products. A highlighter and bronzer in one palette, it was the first powder highlighter we ever used.  So the brand’s glow products already have a place in our hearts – and, thankfully, the new Hollywood superstar glow product does not disappoint.

The packaging is nothing short of stunning. It’s shiny and silver and drips old-school glamour. While it’s not as weighty as it looks – it’s plastic, not metal – the mirror is of superb quality and the clasp is magnetic so it shuts well.

As for the product itself, it has a powder-to-cream formula that glides easily onto the skin. It’s a pretty beamy highlighter (we were using it on light to medium skin), so beware of overdoing it. We used a wide, flat brush to put it on our cheekbones and cupid’s bow, but buffed it out with a fluffier brush for a softer look.

The brand describes this highlighter as having “film-forming polymers” which “help the highlight melt seamlessly into the skin for a smooth, intense-looking glow”, and we agree that it has a gel-like quality that makes it go over imperfections smoothly without emphasisng them or adding unwanted texture. We can’t get enough of it.  

You can build the glow up with this powder, though it’s fairly radiant with one swipe, so you may not need to.

As for wear, it lasted a full 10-hour day with no touch-ups needed – but we kept putting on more just because the palette’s so gorgeous: cue a hyper-intense glow by bedtime!

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Natasha Denona I need a nude glow highlighter: £28, Cult Beauty

(Natasha Denona)

The new Natasha Denona highlighter has been released as part of the brand’s holiday collection, which also includes a mini eye palette and two nude lipsticks. The highlighter features the same impact powder used in the brand’s tan face palette, which came out in summer 2020.  

Packaging wise, it’s a very pretty brick palette in rose gold casing, with ND embossed on the powder itself.  

The colour is very similar to the Charlotte Tilbury Hollywood superstar glow highlighter in its champagne hue, although that product may run ever-so-slightly on the pinker side.  

And just like the Hollywood superstar glow highlighter, this palette has some serious luminescence. We used it in a similar way, applying with a fairly tightly packed flat brush and then buffing out to soften the look. But as the glow you get is pretty metallic, we’d probably suggest it’s better to use a softer brush to diffuse the look and avoid an overly shiny finish. 

Natasha Denona’s formula doesn’t “melt” into the skin in quite the same way as Charlotte Tilbury’s formula, and required a little more buffing and made pores a bit more noticeable. The latter glides over mature skin more easily, this could be thanks to the  addition of squalane, a lipid (or fat) designed to keep skin hydrated. 

One plus point with this palette though is that the powder is so densely packed we feel it could fair very well for travel, we can’t imagine it cracking or flaking on movement which is a bonus if you’re going away or simply like to have make-up to hand when you go out. 

The intense radiant impact on the skin is similar to Charlotte Tilbury’s though and, again, it’s one you can build up for extra glow: go easy if you want subtle.

Much like Charlotte Tilbury’s highlighter, wear time was 10 hours, with no noticeable fading.  

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The verdict: Charlotte Tilbury vs Natasha Denona

For all-out glow, you won’t be disappointed if you pick up either of these palettes. Both offer a buildable, dewy luminosity that will add hours of sleep to your face.  

We’d say both need a little care in their application as they are so beaming, but after a few goes you’ll learn how much to load your brush.  

If you’d rather avoid anything with a slight pink hue, we’d recommend you opt for the Natasha Denona palette. But on every other point, the Charlotte Tilbury product is our winner here.  

The large pan size of the Charlotte Tilbury palette means you can easily swirl a big fluffy brush in it for application to your décolletage, which is a nice bonus. And if you buy the brand’s airbrush bronzer refill, it will fit into this compact once you’ve used the highlighter.

Whatever the magic formula in her new highlighter, we understand why Charlotte Tilbury is considered the queen of glow. This compact is one we’ll be using as a staple.

If you’re still not sure which kind of glow to go for, check out our guide to best liquid, cream and bronzer highlighters  for more ideas