Before I move on to my personal “Christmas” post for the season let’s squeeze in one more review for the sake of it. You know how lots of celebrities rock that shiny shoulder? Daintily highlighted limbs are the cherry on top of a gorgeous outfit really. I recently attended Benefit Cosmetics’ First Boutique launch over a week ago and came away with blogger goodies plus one purchase. Benefit Bathina was the one purchase.
I suppose you can tell that nearly half the reason I bought it was because of the tin. Bathina appears pink in the tin but goes on as a sheer, barely there but definitely there golden pink body highlighter. The puff it comes with is not a simple sponge but something that can be used to buff the product onto limbs to best enhance the sheen. I first spotted this product being used on set by makeup artist Baba on a Globe Tattoo shoot with Alodia Gosiengfiao, Bathina was being vigorously buffed onto her shins. Baba was working alongside Jing Monis on the project. The tin packaging of Bathina indicates that buffing in a circular motion helps enable the highlight product to be worked better into the skin and more visible. Read more to see Bathina applied and a simple celebrity example when it comes to use for the product.
Bathina shimmering body balm adds the perfect amount of mildly golden luminosity/microscopic shimmer to points of contact without being “glittery” nor overtly pearlescent. The highlight sheen it casts isn’t harsh or greasy in appearance, in fact I’m prepared to use the term soft-focus for this.
Bathina also gets points from me for giving off a subtle but lovely feminine fragrance that’s quite Christmas-y. Its mildly sweet floral and vintage notes sent Noelle aka Kikayrunner swooning. However it isn’t strong enough to clash with your favorite fragrance .
I asked my friend, Noelle aka Kikayrunner.com to model the highlighter for me. She left with me the other day on a trip to Bohol for an island wedding and I thought Bathina was the perfect beauty item to bring along for the occasion. We also water tested the sheen which you can spot on Noelle’s shoulder here.
She wasn’t wearing a shiny sunblock and so I can account for Bathina behind any visible highlight happening on Noelle’s shoulders. Noelle absolutely loved it but we do confirm that Bathina isn’t waterproof, it smeared and faded upon direct submersion into the ocean water so for shoots with rain or water interference it would be best to use a fixing or setting spray over Bathina if you want it to last considerably longer. We took it with us to our friend’s beach wedding though, we wouldn’t be without it and the other bridesmaids also wanted a piece of Bathina action. We don’t have a proper photo of us wearing Bathina in the evening but I found a good example of what it looks like, check out Mandy Moore’s Oscar worthy shoulders.
During Mandy Moore’s Oscar night peformance of Tangled’s theme song with Chuck lead star Zachary Levi she looked absolutely ethereal. She had a body glow that was not distracting and though I can’t confirm whether she was actually using Bathina on her shoulders or not I know that Bathina gives practically the exact same kind of effect since I saw it on my girlfriends at the wedding we were at.
Bathina body highlight balm is available at Benefit Cosmetics, Greenbelt 5 Makati for about Php1,600.00, it is pricy but for the amount (about a 1/2 inch thick amount of product) it is quite reasonable. It will be a long time before I hit pan on this one or come close to running out of it.
