Meet our Luminous Highlighters

With the restock of our circle shadows and highlighters happening Wednesday, July 28th at 3pm EDT, we want to reintroduce a few of the shades and provide a bit more insight into the names, themes, and inspiration. 

CLIONADH
The highlighter/blush topper Clionadh holds a special place in our hearts - and not only because it is the namesake of our company.

Starting at the very beginning, circa summer 2016, Clionadh Cosmetics developed our first line of products, the Deity Series highlighters. Clionadh is referred to as the goddess of love and beauty in Irish mythology, which is represented in the swirling pinks of this product. Available in three versions: light, medium, and dark; they all feature the same bright fuchsia throughout. The marble pattern goes all the way through the pan, which is a handmade element that can be quite a time-consuming process. This makes each pan truly one of a kind.

With inclusivity as a primary goal, the sisters invited friends and family to help with swatches and photos on different skin tones in these early stages.

CERES
A little under a year later, Maggie and Leigh expanded Clionadh’s range of face highlighters by developing a sister collection to the Deity Series: The Pantheon Extension. The intention was to broaden the colours and tones available, and each highlighter in the Pantheon Extension pairs up with one from the Deity Series, creating a parallel between the two collections.

The creation of Ceres was a team effort. Taking a mixture of blue, orange, and yellow pigments, Maggie’s interest in colour theory and her exploratory nature with raw materials yielded this medium-toned gold shimmer. The names for this collection stemmed from Leigh’s fascination with Roman culture and lifestyle. Thus they were aptly named after Roman gods and goddesses. Ceres is the goddess of agriculture, crops, and wheat, which is expressed with the burnished gold colour of this highlighter.

BREAKER
In spring 2017, the sisters jumped head-first into the newest pigment technology - iridescents. After many rounds of fine-tuning and rainbow swatching, the Aftershock face highlighters were born.

Breaker is the most challenging of these iridescent highlighters to produce due to pigment variation (and perfectionism) - it leans either slightly too blue or a touch on the purple side with each batch, meaning quite a bit of expertise is needed to get the colour exactly right. Despite the challenges with these new pigments, Maggie and Leigh enjoyed launching this collection.

The first Clionadh Cosmetics modelling photoshoot featured these highlighters and took place in the family home. Set up with the lights off in a hallway and a single source of light, low exposure was used to make the Aftershock collection glow and come to life. These photos were used for Clionadh’s first postcards and ad campaign.

Fall of 2017 saw the creation of our Witchcraft vs. Alchemy Collection, which showcased an extensive lineup of duochrome shadows and highlighters.

Aether is considered the 5th element, or the material that fills the universe above the terrestrial sphere. Among one of Maggie’s favourites (she keeps one in her makeup bag!), Aether is admired for its shimmery pink, trichrome formula, and was recently reformulated due to pigment discontinuation. The formula for highlighters includes ingredients designed to enhance skin-smoothing properties, however all our highlighters works wonders on the eye as well, including Aether!

RESTOCK
Wednesday, July 28th at 3pm EDT.

See you there!

-  The Clionadh Team