Review, Swatches | Kiko Precious Rituals Collection: Long Lasting Vegan Bronzer in 01 Honey and Highlighter in 02 Golden Meditation

Kiko has been coming out with some aesthetically pleasing products. I’m admitting it – the only reason I indulged in the Precious Rituals collection was because the packaging reminded me of those beautiful Guerlain bronzers that come in a wooden compact. I had no expectations for these two, they really only had to be pretty for me to be satisfied, but guess what, the hot stuff is very nice too.

Kiko advertises this collection as being entirely vegan – although nowadays that claim isn’t really that impressive anymore when it comes to beauty products – and I think it’s another attempt at cashing in on that pure, “clean” trend. Fine by me, keep riding that unsullied cashcow – if it’s good or pretty, I’ll buy it.

Golden Meditation highlighter swatch on the left, Honey bronzer on the right

Let’s start with the bronzer. The swatch doesn’t look sexy. I started doubting my decision, scared that the bronzer would be too thin and powdery and end up in the regret pile, so I proceeded to apply it with scepticism. Goddam, never judge a powder by it’s hand swatch. This is one of the best bronzers I’ve ever tried – powder who? It looks like skin, my skin, only better, smoother, mythical creature like: no pores, no texture, no peach fuzz… everything disappears. And yet, it’s so natural looking. Without setting spray, I noticed it looked faded after around 9 hours, so longevity could be better, specially given the name, but you can’t win them all can you? (How would you then justify buying another bronzer?)

I got the lightest shade, 01 Honey, and it is light – so much so that it’s hard to see the swatch on my hand, where my skintone is a tad deeper than my face. The colour works for me but it’s on the lighter, neutral side (for reference, I’m currently about a NC20 in MAC foundations), which I enjoy, but it’s something to keep in mind if you’re considering getting it. And you should consider getting it.

Highlighter in Golden Meditation on the left, bronzer in Honey on the right. The shades look equally deep.

The highlighter, in case it isn’t obvious by now, is a bit too dark for me. It’s a mid tone peachy gold. I used it as a blush topper, so a bit lower on my cheeks than highlighter typically goes, because this shade makes me look more bronzed – even my husband mentioned November has nothing on me, I looked like I came back from Aruba. I can make it work, but it does not serve the purpose a typical highlighter should on me. The other highlighter in the collection sounds even darker (I say sounds because I haven’t seen it in person, but “Copper & Calm ” feels like it’ll be darker) so I don’t think this collection has a highlighter for very fair to light skintones – which is ironic, considering the range of the bronzers!

Quality wise, it’s nice, but not as good as the bronzer. The shine is intense, but it’s a bit powdery – I expected it to feel creamier than it did. It emphasized texture a bit, like highlighters usually do, but it blended really easily and actually lasted longer than the bronzer (around 10 hours). It’s still a good bet if the shade works for you.

Packaging is a wooden compact with a lid that screws off and has a mirror on the inside. They both contain 10g of product and both have strong scents, though very different from each other. The bronzer is supposed to smell like cinnamon but the scent it spot on for ginger cookies, and the highlighter was supposed to be white tea but smells like hand soap. Pleasant, but weird. Maybe they got their scents off, maybe they’re sending subliminal messages to reminds us to wash our hands before eating.

Either way, I’m in love, and I just wish there were more highlighter shades.

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5 Comments

  1. There’s a Kiko shop five minutes walk from my home, so I’ll go check if they have these two available to sample them. Thank you for your review!

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