Hourglass Ambient Lighting Edit Swatches & First Impression

The Hourglass Ambient Lighting Edit ($80 at Sephora) is perhaps one of the most highly anticipated releases for Holiday 2015. For me, the fact that it contained Hourglass' famous face powders, blushes and a bronzer all in one beautiful compact meant that I had to get it the minute it launched. But is it worth the splurge? Read on to find out...

The Ambient Lighting Edit contains three Ambient Lighting powders, including a brand new shade. Also included are two blushes and a bronzer. 

Products Included: 

- 0.049 oz Ambient Lighting Powder in Dim Light 

- 0.049 oz Ambient Strobe Lighting Powder in Iridescent Strobe Light (new)
- 0.049 oz Ambient Lighting Powder in Diffused Light 

- 0.049 oz Ambient Lighting Blush in Mood Exposure 
- 0.049 oz Ambient Lighting Blush in Luminous Flush 
- 0.049 oz Ambient Lighting Bronzer in Luminous Bronze Light 

The compact is sturdy and beautiful with a reflective mirror-like surface. Inside, the mirror is large which is an added bonus. The powders themselves are the same as you'll find in their full-sized versions and I love that this compact has a little bit of everything, because it makes it great for travel.

Now the bad news...at $80, the Ambient Lighting Edit is way overpriced in my opinion. Here's how it breaks down:

A Full size Ambient Lighting Powder is 0.35 oz. for $45.00  ($128.57/oz.)
A Full size Ambient Lighting Blush is 0.15 oz. for $35.00 ($233.33/oz.)
A Full size Ambient Lighting Bronzer is 0.39 oz. for $50.00 ($128.21/oz.)

Now the Ambient Lighting Edit is 0.294 oz. for $80.00 ($272.11/oz.)...that's a much higher cost per oz. than any of their full sized products.  If I do the math correctly, this palette contains about $48 worth of product. Even if they charged $10 more for the sake of it being convenient to have all of these different products in one palette it wouldn't bother me, but $80 is just really steep for something this small. 

Another problem I ran into is that due to the small pan size, it's difficult to get a brush into any one pans without it dipping into the one next to it. I was able to use my It Cosmetics Complexion Perfection brush that came with their Celebration Foundation because it's a little smaller than some of my larger fluffier brushes. But I wish I could use a larger brush for Dim Light, Diffused Light, and Bronze Light because I would normally apply those over my entire face and I prefer to use a larger brush for that.

Here are the swatches and as you can see, they're really beautiful!

Overall, I'm really disappointed by the size of this palette, but that's not to say I don't absolutely love it otherwise. The packaging is gorgeous and the shades are ones that I would use every single day, but it's expensive and hard to get a brush into the pans so I'm really torn about whether or not I should keep it.

While this palette is expensive for the amount of product you get, it's not nearly as expensive as purchasing all six shades separately, so if you've never tried the Hourglass Ambient powders, blushes and bronzer and have always wanted to, this is a way to get them all at once for $80 as opposed to $255. 

However, if you already own some of these shades, you can probably skip this palette unless you travel a lot and would get a lot of use out of it that way. 

What do you think, have you purchased this already, are you planning to, or are you going to skip it? 

You can find the Hourglass Ambient Lighting Edit at Sephora.com.