Review, Swatches | Pat McGrath Celestial Odyssey Holiday 2021 Divine Blush + Glow Trio in Galactic Sun

Surprise surprise, I actually got my Pat McGrath order in time for Christmas! They’re getting better with their shipping times. I order some items from the holiday collection, Celestial Odyssey, a bit before Black Friday and it arrived early December. Thank god. Because obviously, I was in urgent need for blush.

Seriously though, I’ve tried to talk myself out of this purchase, but I think I need to come to terms with the fact that Pat’s holiday collections are something that I’m just going to buy from. She puts out stuff with incredible value and really interesting colour stories that I can’t pass up. I just can’t. Take this face palette: it was a lot cheaper than buying the blushes and highlighter individually, and I hadn’t tried either yet. So in the end, am I not saving money?

No, I’m not.

But it’s a good way to try multiple items from her line without paying full price. I chose the light toned trio, which comes with the Divine Rose blush (a light mauve), the Desert Orchid blush (an earthy peach), and the Golden Nectar highlighter (a peachy gold). The blushes have a satin finish, with no shimmer particles, but an almost glow-y “film” on them, making them more natural looking.

Swatching the blushes, I was under the impression that it would take a bit of effort to pick up colour since they seem like are hard pressed in the pan, but no. Turns out they’re not that hardly pressed, is just that they are not powdery at all. They are easy to apply and blend out, and they are moderately pigmented, which means it’s easy to build up the colour and you won’t look like a clown right off the bat. When using a mask for the bigger part of the day, after 10 hours, they are almost gone. When not using a mask, they were only slightly faded. I didn’t use a setting spray when testing these powders and they were still pretty much intact around the 8 hour mark.

The highlighter is a totally different formula. It feels lighter, and more powdery. It has a base shine and a lot of shimmer on top – this is one of those that tends to look more obvious on the skin because of the shimmer. It does not look metallic nor wet, but it is more impactful on the skin than on the swatch, and the gold shift is more visible on the cheeks. It does blend easily on the skin, almost too easily – if I’m not careful it blends itself into a larger area than I actually want it to, and I attribute this to it being more powdery. Not my favourite highlight formula, but not bad. It lasted longer than the blushes, still being very visible at the 10 hour mark.

The whole palette is 10,5 grams. If every pan contains the same amount, that’s 3,5 grams for each product- slightly more than half a blush. Not bad. The pans are large, so you wont have a problem using regular brushes with these powders. You won’t feel like you are compromising on the amount if you get them vs the full size.

Totally worth it, if you can still get it.