DIY Pumpkin Spice Highlighter

Y'all guess what? I'm back with another pumpkin-themed DIY! I'm an October baby, and my family/friends have given me pumpkins as presents over the years, so I've amassed a collection. And I love them. 

In fact, a couple of months ago, one of my friends was poking fun of how I have pumpkin everything. "I bet you have pumpkin makeup!" she teased. Well, in fact I do. Ahem: Burt's Bees pumpkin spice lip balm, PSL sugar scrub, PSL body butter, pumpkin masks, and now a pumpkin spice highlighter. 



I've been making my own highlighters/blushes/shadows/bronzers for years using broken shadows and pigments (here's a tutorial from a few years ago) but never did specific shapes until last year when I saw the pizza highlighter on Facebook. I immediately made cupcakes, ice cream cones, and other things inspired by it. Since those diys were so popular over the summer, I decided to wait until fall to post and am sharing my pumpkin spice highlighter. This is so much cuter in person--it is not photographing as shimmery as it is. And these are SO easy and fast to make!

Ingredients--

• empty compact (you can buy these wholesale or reuse an empty, clean one)
• pigments (look online) or shadows/highlighters/bronzers/blushes
• rubbing alcohol
• stirring and/or scooping object
• tissue or paper towel
• optional: lip or eye pencil

Directions--

Y'all, I can't draw, so I prefer to use an eye pencil to sketch out my design. Think of the shape of your compact and space. I used a round one here, but I have used square and rectangle as well.

In a small bowl, scoop out your first pigment color. While you can use whatever colors you'd like, I kept mine to more wearable highlight colors (y'all, I made a rainbow highlighter and looked ridiculous, but you do you). 

Add in a little of rubbing alcohol and mix. I find that eye shadows are a little lumpier than pigments, since eye shadows come pressed as opposed to loose pigments, but both work the same in the end. If it turns to liquid, add more pigment/shadow. You want a gloppy sort of mix as pictured above.

Scoop your mix into your container and repeat steps with other colors. I did a few of these, so some I did two colors and a couple I did 3 (background, pumpkin, stem). 

Once you have your design, place a tissue or paper towel on top and press to blot away excess alcohol. This will help press those lumps you might have had in your mix. I chose tissue since mine didn't have a pattern, but do what you like. The more you use the highlighter, the more the pattern will disappear anyway. 

Allow to dry for an hour (or longer) and then it's ready. I used 3 colors for some of these and two shades for others. You can use a sharp object to carve out lines, but those fade with use. I used flash here to show the sparkle a bit more.

Here are swatches of the highlighter! You can wear them together or separately. Below is with flash to really show off the sparkle.

With flash

And that's it! Do you use highlighters?

Extra Elle:

-Went diy-crazy this weekend--spray painting a candle holder, I made clay marble bowls, and a flameless fire pit. I also started my monthly makeup clean out.