LA Girl has been delivering some excellent drugstore products lately that have quickly become cult favourites. If you haven't tried the brand's HD Pro Conceal Concealer yet, you should. As for their Velvet Contour Stick range, I suggest you give this one a miss.

Given the hype surrounding this range and other products from the LA Girl brand, I quickly headed out to Dischem to give it a look. The range consists of 10 blush sticks, 3 bronze sticks and 3 highlight sticks, all with a supposedly cream-based formula. While their is a variety of shades in the blush sticks, the same cannot be said for the bronze and highlight sticks whose shades are very similar, and unfortunately mostly suited to those with fair to medium skin tones.

I have been searching for a good drugstore highlight (something it seems impossible to find!) so I decided to try the Hi-lite Stick in the shade radiance. Out of the 3 Hi-lite sticks, this one has a shimmer that should be great for highlighting the cheek bones, nose and brow bones. The packaging, while conveniently small and easy to operate (it has a twist mechanism), is not particularly special or attractive.

Cream-based products must be easy to blend, and the formula of this product is everything but. It is hard, completely sheer and unpigmented, and, as it leaves a streak of product on the skin, almost completely impossible to blend. If you do manage to blend away the streak, all that is left is a slight sheen of glitter with none of the golden glow you come to expect from a good highlighter.

At R99,99, the Velvet Contour Stick range is on the pricer end of the spectrum of LA Girl products. Given the less-than-desirable quality of the product, and the tiny amount you get (about 1,5 cm -- 1,8 cm fully wound up, new) it is also certainly not worth the money. So continues my journey for the perfect drugstore highlighter.