Home MakeupFace Products Charlotte Tilbury Hollywood Flawless Filter Review

Charlotte Tilbury Hollywood Flawless Filter Review

by ceecee
Charlotte-Tilbury-Hollywood-Flawless-Filter

If you’ve watched any YouTube lately, chances are you’ve come across at least one influencer raving about Charlotte Tilbury Hollywood Flawless Filter. With all the hype surrounding the product, you’d think it’d be easy enough to answer: “what is the Hollywood Flawless filter?”. Is it a foundation? A primer? A highlighter?

Charlotte Tilbury Hollywood Flawless Filter Overview

The Charlotte Tilbury Hollywood Flawless Filter is a liquid illuminator that provides light coverage along with a radiant finish.

It retails for $44 and contains 1 fluid oz of product. It’s packaged in a glass bottle with an over-sized doe-foot applicator and there are seven shades in the line.

Charlotte Tilbury Flawless Filter

Charlotte Tilbury Hollywood Flawless Filter Review

Claims

The brand describes the product as liquid tinted complexion booster that can be used as a primer, highlighter, or mixed with your foundation to get a perfected dewy finish or glow. It claims to help soften focus, illuminate skin, and make lines and pores appear smoother.

Consistency

The product has the consistency of a standard liquid foundation and it blends easily out on the skin. The Flawless Filter feels very light on skin and applies in an even, thin layer. It dries fairly quickly and leaves a slight amount hydration, that’s in no way greasy or dewy.

Coverage and Finish

Here’s where the Hollywood Flawless Filter sets itself apart from other glowy primers, liquid highlighters, or radiant foundations. The best way to describe the product is a liquid illuminator. However, the fact that it provides some coverage in addition to a radiant finish puts it in a category of its own.

The sheen that it gives off is so seamless that, to look at it in the bottle, you might mistake it for a foundation. As it blends out the radiance becomes apparent but it’s so fine that it’s impossible to detect any shimmer particles. All you see is a radiant glow that creates a lit-from-within effect on the skin. Yet the glow isn’t due to any added dewiness.

Hollywood Flawless Filter 4 Medium Swatch
Charlotte Tilbury Hollywood Flawless Filter 4 Medium
Hollywood Flawless Filter Blended

So what makes this different than similar seeming products like, say the Becca Shimmering Skin Perfector Liquid? The Becca has a more visible shimmer to it, and it doesn’t provide any coverage. It’s best suited as a highlighter or mix in medium, but you wouldn’t use it your base product. While not technically a foundation, the Flawless Filter can function as a stand-alone product, though it also works beautifully as a highlighter or primer.

When used on its own it gives a “filtered” look to skin, by creating a soft focus effect that slightly blurs redness and imperfections.

The coverage provided from the Flawless Filter is minimal, it’s definitely not going to cover any major blemishes, but it will even out the skin to a certain degree, which is something you won’t get from other liquid illuminators like the Armani Fluid Sheer, Becca Shimmering Skin Perfector, or the Marc Jacobs Dew Drops. To compare it to the It Cosmetics CC Illumination, the Flawless Filter is a thinner product that provides less coverage and also feels lighter on the skin.

Uses

The unique combo of coverage and seamless radiance, makes the Flawless Filter a very versatile product and it can be used in a number of ways.

  • Primer: The slightly hydrating formula makes the Flawless Filter ideal as a primer. The radiant finish provides a beautiful lit-from-within glow when applied under foundation.
  • Foundation Mix-in: The Flawless Filter works well as a foundation mix-in because it can subtly boost the glow factor of a foundation. It won’t affect the foundation’s consistency too drastically because it’s not as runny as most liquid highlighters.
  • Sheer Base: The Hollywood Flawless Filter is a great product for those looking for a low maintenance base that will even out their skin tone and provide a glow. It blends easily with fingers and the doe foot makes application convenient.
  • Highlighter: The Flawless Filter can be applied to the top of the cheekbones and the high points of the face for a highlighted glow.

Shade Range

Because the Hollywood Flawless Filter can provide coverage it makes sense that the brand released the product in several shades. There are only seven shades available which shouldn’t be an issue for most people. Because it’s quite a sheer product, each shade can work on multiple skin tones. I think the line could use one additional deep shade because the current deepest one may be too light for the deepest skin tones.

For reference I’m a slightly olive NC30 skin tone and I wear shade 4 in the Hollywood Flawless Filter which gives my skin a slight boost of color.

Charlotte Tilbury Hollywood Flawless Filter Swatches
Left to Right: 1 Fair, 2 Light, 3 Light/Medium
4 Medium, 5 Tan, 6 Dark Tan, 7 Dark
Hollywood Flawless Filter Swatches
Left to Right: 1 Fair, 2 Light, 3 Light/Medium
4 Medium, 5 Tan, 6 Dark Tan, 7 Dark

How to Use the Charlotte Tilbury Hollywood Flawless Filter

My favorite way to apply the Flawless Filter is under my foundation as a glow enhancer. Using the applicator, I dot the product onto my skin and blend it out with my fingers before applying foundation. I usually use a light to medium coverage foundation so the glow provided from the Flawless Filter really shines through. I especially like using it for special occasions when I want my skin to look its best.

Cruelty Free and Vegan Status

Charlotte Tilbury and their suppliers do not test their products on animals. Nor do they have third parties test on their behalf. Their products are sold in mainland China only via eCommerce which does not require animal testing. There were samples of Charlotte Tilbury products available at pop-up shops in Mainland China in December 2019. Those samples could potentially have been subject to post-market testing if there was a consumer complaint; Charlotte Tilbury has since pulled their sample testers from the pop-up stores and their displays have closed.

Charlotte Tilbury does not list the Hollywood Flawless Filter among the vegan products available from their line.

The Hollywood Flawless Filter is Gluten, Soy, and Paraben Free.

Where to Buy the Charlotte Tilbury Hollywood Flawless Filter

The Hollywood Flawless Filter is available at the following locations.

  • Sephora – Free shipping on orders over $50. Free returns.
  • Charlotte Tilbury – Free shipping and free returns. International shipping available.
  • Nordstrom – Free shipping and free returns
  • Beautylish – Free shipping on orders over $35 and free returns. International shipping available.
  • Bloomindales – Free shipping on orders over $50 and free returns.

Regardless of where you purchase from, make sure to check if Rakuten (ebates) is offering cashback. If you haven’t signed up for Rakuten yet, you can do so here, it only takes a minute and then you’ll earn cashback on eligible purchases every time you shop through their link. They also have an extension which I recommend installing, that activates cash back on all eligible websites with one click. It also scans for coupons. 

Final Thoughts

The Hollywood Flawless Filter is a truly unique product that I have yet to come across from other brands. It’s an ideal option if you want a low maintenance base that will provide a gorgeous radiance. I like that it can give you a finished look when paired with some concealer. I love the effect it gives and it’s essential to my routine when I want to look my best.

Thanks for reading, feel free to leave a comment below.

Bye now,

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