There are a few life events that every beauty addict will remember for the rest of her life: the first time she curled her own hair, the day she perfected her winged liner, and the first time she laid eyes on the viral rainbow highlighter.

Bitter Lace Beauty originated this multicolored facial highlighter, but since their Prism Palette is perpetually sold out (Side note: their Halloween rainbow highlighters are currently in stock here. You’re welcome.), the beauty world has had to find other ways to get their rainbow fix. Like many other brands, Forever 21 dropped their own rainbow compact, but unlike Bitter Lace’s which sell for $22, Forever’s is only $5.

Forever 21’s

Bitter Lace Beauty’s

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Obviously when I found out I could score this literal beauty unicorn for only $5, I jumped on it and luckily was able to snag one before they sold out (sorry, everyone). Here’s what happened.

The First (Failed) Application

When I opened this highlighter for the first time, I was hoping for some bold, bright Jeffree Star Skin Frost-level pigmentation, but as this is a $5 highlighter, my dreams were just that. Because I’m apparently living in a fantasy land where a $5 highlighter works as well as a $29 one, I tried to apply it with a brush anyway. WRONG MOVE, KELSEY.

Even though the pigments looked beautiful on the brush, you could barely see the colors — except the blue, which is super bright — on my face, even after multiple layers. So I tried a different approach.



The Second Application (With a Beauty Blender This Time)

I needed to really pack on the color in order to get the full 6-color stripe I wanted, so I grabbed a Beauty Blender. It worked like a freaking charm.

No Blending

Blended

Look at that ~sparkle!~ You can totally see the blue and some of the pink, but unfortunately, the orange, yellow, and green sort of combined to form a huge chunk of gold-toned shimmer. Still, the effect is definitely there. I officially have a rainbow face!

If you’ve watched any of my outfit of the day videos, you know that rainbow colors are not my thing, so you’ll never see me rocking this on a Saturday night. But for those of you who like to dazzle the world with unicorn makeup, give it a try for sure.

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Kelsey Stiegman Senior Style Editor Kelsey is Seventeen.com's fashion expert and resident Harry Potter nerd.

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