I don’t fault my friends, family, colleagues, and Instagram followers for coming to me with anything and everything beauty related. I spend at least 40 hours a week researching, learning, thinking, and writing about beauty. Over the last couple of weeks I have been asked repeatedly about the same product by practically everyone I know: Chanel’s Baume Essentiel Multi-Use Glow Stick.

I usually get asked about a variety of products, but occasionally it will just be the same one over and over again. It happened previously with snail mucin, and now with the Chanel Baume highlighter. In both cases I think the catalyst was Tiktok; the Chanel product in question currently has 11.6 billion views on the app. 

Baume Essential is a multi-use stick available in seven shades, including a transparent option, pearly pink Rosée, caramel Sculpting Light, and lilac Lilas. I was lucky enough to receive a sample of the highlighter in Dragée, a very subtle, almost sheer pink. After applying a skin tint, I rubbed the stick onto the pads of my index and middle fingers, then patted it onto my cheek bones. To answer the two most common questions I was asked about Chanel’s Baume Essential: Yes, it’s as good as the videos make it look and yes, it’s worth the money. 

Around 2014, there was this big movement for incredibly dewy, almost wet looking skin. The problem was that it was simply not replicable. Any and every product marketed as a face gloss or something of the sort did not hold up. As someone who tried to participate in the trend, I can tell you firsthand that the result was a sticky and short-lasting dew. 

Fast forward nine years later and Chanel has developed the science to create a long-lasting product that actually provides the face gloss results everyone has been pining after. It’s such a versatile product that I firmly believe even people who think they don’t like highlighters will be proved wrong. Plus, since this is a multi-stick it can be used everywhere — including eyes, lips, collarbones, and more. 

Chanel’s Baume Essentiel is not shimmery or glittery — it’s like sunlight in a stick. The results are similar to golden hour rays hitting your face, or the glow that happens when your skin catches the candlelight in a dimly lit room. I’m a highlighter snob and I still found myself impressed by the Chanel balm. 

So, the TL;DR? Chanel’s Baume Essentiel absolutely lives up to the hype — add it to your cart before TikTok sells it out.