blush

Review: Illamasqua Cream Blusher in Promise

By Voxy  |  2010/09/28 07:00 Posted in blush, Makeup, Product Reviews  |  Comments (3)

Illamasqua is another of those brands I’d wanted to try for a long time, but because they aren’t sold in any brick-and-mortar Sephora stores near me, I haven’t been able to check them out in person. I admit I do like to walk into stores and ask if they carry the line just because the name is so fun to say — the “qu” is pronounced as in “sesquipedalian,” or “hemidemisemiquaver,” or “Quiet, Quentin! I am quite sure I did answer questions and queries about the quiz, so quit quailing and quivering querulously!”

(You can tell it’s a low point in the semester when using “qu” words amuses me — or when I wind up in a corner with my arms covering my head, rocking back and forth and muttering the name of a cosmetics line over and over. If you happen to come across me in such a situation, please send vodka martinis. Vox brand vodka obviously preferred.)

My first Illamasqua purchase was a cream blush (or “blusher,” as they quaintly call it) in shade Promise, which is a cool but bright pink. Illamasqua is probably best known for their eyeshadows and pigments, but you all know I’ve been questing after cream and gel blushes, so how could I resist?

In the land of cream blushes, there is frequently a disconnect between what it looks like in the compact and how it looks on your cheeks. Promise is very much a what-you-see-is-what-you-get color: an exquisitely delicate cool pink. Unlike Tarte cheek stains, which are sheer, this is a true cream blush: opaque, milky, blendable.

While overall I like the product very much, I do have a few … quibbles. Its lasting power is not quite as long as I expect from cream and gel blushes (but I think I have probably been rather thoroughly spoiled by Stila Convertible Colors, which last all day and into the evening without complaint). I also wish they came in a larger quantity of shades: in the US, these are Sephora exclusives, and there are only five shades available — Promise (cool petal pink), Betray (described as “deep plum rose,” but dang, that swatch looks positively purple to me), Libido (bright orange-red), Lies (light pearly pink), and Rude (pinky-coral).

Quality-wise, the product lives up to expectations: it’s easy to apply and blend, though I suspect that people whose skin is strongly yellow-toned might have trouble with this particular shade. The packaging is attractive and distinctive — a stylized square with extra-pointy corners — and while packaging itself [almost] never sells me on a product, I admit it’s part of the allure.

Sasquatch! Swatch!

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Illamasqua Cream Blusher in Promise: $24 at Sephora

Provenance: Acquired by purchase.

Price/Value Ratio (high-end: poor/fair/good/excellent): Quite good.

Purchase again? Unquestionably!

(Have you used this product? Love it? Hate it? Want it? Give a holler in the comments!)

Review: NARS Blush in Amour

By Voxy  |  2010/08/22 09:08 Posted in blush, Makeup, Product Reviews  |  Comments (4)

That’s “amour,” not “armour.” For some bizarre reason I keep wanting to put an extra R in there — and it’s not even Talk-Like-A-Pirate Day! Arrr!

Regrettably, I have been unsuccessful in achieving satisfaction with NARS Orgasm, after repeated attempts. (There. Happy? Enough double entendre there for you?) I also tested other NARS blushes in-store that seemed to be more glitter than pigment, so in spite of the general squeeing over NARS blushes I was doubtful that I’d find one I could wear without looking like a disco ball.

NARS Amour, I am happy to say, has exactly zero glitter or shimmer (it’s completely matte, as far as I can see), and is a lovely shade of rose. Other web descriptions call it “peachy-pink,” but there ain’t no peaches in here as fur as I can see. It’s pink. And a very pretty shade of pink, I must say — unless you accidentally put on too much (which is too say, you look at the container slightly too hard), in which case it starts to be a feverish sunburn shade of pinkish-red.

Like other NARS powder blushes, Amour comes in a rectangular case that’s exactly the same as the ELF studio blushes except that the NARS case is slightly rubberized on the outside. Does this mean it’s actually less likely to shatter if you should happen to drop it, or does it just make you think that? In either case, not an experiment I’m willing to conduct.

This is one of the most pigmented blushes I’ve ever used, which I’m not sure is a good thing. On the one hand, no one wants to spend 20 minutes putting layer after layer of blush on until you get a teeny tiny bit of glow. On the other hand, it is so, so easy to put on too much of this product without half trying. In the end I found that either a fan brush or a stippling brush is best (for stippling, I use the Sigma version of the MAC 188, which is the smaller of the two stippling brushes).

The other difficulty this creates for me is that because you end up using so little product, the color doesn’t last on me as long as I’d like, even when I use a setting powder on top. It’s really just a matter of quantity of product — if you only put on a tiny bit, then when a tiny bit wears away, you got nothin’. I haven’t tried it with a makeup fixing spray yet, but I will the next time I wear it. I’ve been so spoiled by the “immovable-object” quality of cream and gel blushes and stains that anything else seems like a huge inconvenience. Still, the color is really beautiful and so it’s worth continuing to work at it.

Close-up and swatch!

I don’t know how I got that light of a swatch. I think maybe I just waved my arm over the compact and thought happy thoughts.

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NARS Blush in Amour: $26

Provenance: Purchased.

Price/Value Ratio (high-end: poor/fair/good/excellent): Fair. You’re not going to get a high-end blush for much less than this, but I do need it to last all day.

Purchase again? Mais oui. Arrrr!

(Have you used this product? Love it? Hate it? Want it? Give a holler in the comments!)

Review: LORAC Croc Palette

By Voxy  |  2010/08/20 07:00 Posted in blush, eyeshadow, Makeup, Product Reviews  |  Comments (4)

Don’t hate me.

I think I found a palette that I like better than the UD Naked Palette.

<ducks to avoid flying pieces of rotten vegetables>

All right, as well as the UD Naked Palette. OK?

I still love my UD, but I picked this one up for travel and ended up using it almost every day I was away, which is really rare for me (I am so fickle!). The colors appealed to me because they lean towards copper rather than bronze, and they make my green eyes pop really well. The Naked palette tends to lean towards yellower shades, and those make me look a little jaundiced if I’m not careful. I purchased some LORAC shadows from HauteLook several months ago and hated them, so I was really dubious about these, but the colors were just too nice to resist.

The LORAC Croc Palette has four eyeshadows: Moonstone (soft champagne), Serenity (peachy champagne bronze), Garnet (copper), and Suede (chocolate). Suede is matte; all the others have shimmer. The palette also includes a powder blush in shade Soul, which is a browned rose that I probably won’t use much until fall really kicks in; it’s a little dark for summer. The eyeshadows are nicely well-pigmented and very smooth; I had a little bit of fallout during application, but nothing that wasn’t easily removed — and that frankly couldn’t have been prevented had I been less hasty in application. They did not crease over TFSI and they stayed vibrant all day. The palette does not come with a brush (yay!!! no extra cost for bad mini-brushes!), so you’ll have to use your own, which is better anyway. The outside of the case is faux croc, and it has a magnetic closure, which is nice to make sure the palette doesn’t open itself up in your purse.

Moonstone and Serenity are not all that different from one another; I used Moonstone as a wash, Serenity on the lid, Garnet in the crease, and Suede in the outer corner. The photos below show the colors applied over TFSI with Neutrogena Spiced Chocolate eyeliner, Tarte Lights, Camera, Lashes! mascara, and Tarte emphasEYES brow pencil. (Unrelated: New Blogger Lesson #51 — Taking pictures of eye makeup is hard. I just discovered a whole new thing I suck at!)

Swatches and photos:

L-R: Soul blush; Suede, Garnet, Serenity, Moonlight eyeshadows

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LORAC Croc Palette: $36

Provenance: Purchased

Price/Value Ratio (high-end: poor/fair/good/excellent): Good.

Purchase again? Yes, and they’ve got a new one out for the fall that’s tempting me.

(Have you used this product? Love it? Hate it? Want it? Give a holler in the comments!)

Review: Redpoint Airbrush Effects Blushwhip

By Voxy  |  2010/08/08 07:00 Posted in blush, Makeup, Product Reviews  |  Comments (0)

If only the word “whip” didn’t have so many … other … connotations!

Redpoint Airbrush Effects Blushwhips are really excellent little products. As per the name, they have a lovely whipped texture that is somewhere between mousse and pudding. (Once again, note to self: do not write blog posts while hungry.)

They come in two shades: Vida, which is a cool pink, and Glow, which is a very warm reddish-pink. Both are gorgeous. On my cool-toned skin I prefer Vida, especially since I don’t have any other cream or gel blush that’s the same shade. Glow is also very nice but since I’m fair-skinned it’s easy to go overboard. Both shades apply smoothly, blend gorgeously, and have excellent staying power (well, OK, that’s true of most cream and gel products, but it’s worth saying again).

My only complaint, and this will not be news to regular readers, is that there is WAY TOO MUCH PACKAGING. The well that holds the product is housed inside a ginormous three-foot-thick plastic cylinder. (OK, I exaggerate just a little.) The end result is that the jars are unnecessarily heavy, take up too much space in my storage system, and are completely impractical for travel. So — Product: Yay! Packaging: Boo.

Swatch! Vida is on the left, Glow on the right. (Man, these are crappy swatches. They look gorgeous on cheeks but the swatches keep coming out terribly; that’s probably the fourth or fifth time I tried to swatch them.)

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Redpoint Airbrush Effects Blushwhip, via DermStore: $14 each.

Provenance: Purchased.

Price/Value Ratio (high-end: poor/fair/good/excellent): At this sale price, Good.

Purchase again? Yes.

(Have you used this product? Love it? Hate it? Want it? Give a holler in the comments!)

Review: Stila Convertible Color Lip/Cheek Tint in Orchid

By Voxy  |  2010/07/25 08:47 Posted in blush, Makeup, Product Reviews  |  Comments (3)

Since I mentioned AllCosmeticsWholesale the other day, I thought I should follow up by telling you about something else I recently purchased from there, which is Stila’s Convertible Color for lips/cheeks in Orchid.

AllCosmeticsWholesale is a great place to look for not just standard, permanent-collection items (like the aforementioned Sigma brushes) but also cosmetics from older collections that are not available anymore in-store, on-counter, or via the brand website — and sometimes at below-retail prices. Case in point: this lovely convertible color, which is from Stila’s Holiday 2008 collection but which is still oh-so-worth-getting.

Like most cheek stains, Orchid looks pretty frightening in the pan, as in “excuse me, did someone accidentally fill this compact with grape juice concentrate instead of cream blush?” It looks way too dark and way too purple to be wearable on any but the darkest skin tones, but as with most other creams and gels, a light touch and blending can make this wearable for almost anyone.

I’ve really been on a cream/gel/stain blush kick for the last few months, mostly because I’ve been amazed by their lasting power and by the way you can build up pigmentation without looking like a bag of pink flour exploded in your face. Stila CC’s perform exceptionally well in this regard — all-day wear, sheer but buildable color, smooth finish, easy to blend (a brush is recommended, though).

On skin, Orchid is a deep, sheer raspberry color, similar to Tarte’s Blushing Bride cheek stain (so if you like the color of Blushing Bride but want something a little creamier or with a different finish, Orchid is worth checking out). Even though this is a product from 2008, its condition is as good as my more recent CC purchases — smooth and creamy, not dry, cracked, or separated.

The annoying twist here is that although this was in stock just a few days ago, it is now *out* of stock on ACW, which made me think about scrapping this post entirely. However, ACW’s stock changes often and I imagine it will be back in. At least, I hope it will, or I will look like an idiot. In the meanwhile, here is the link to the Stila page on ACW. They do have the full-size CC in Camellia, which is a permanent Stila product (not a LE holiday item or anything) for a mere $9.99 instead of the $25 you will pay for it at Sephora or on Stila’s own website. And I don’t have the receipt to hand, but I think $9.99 is what I paid for Orchid as well. So ACW is definitely worth checking out from time to time. They ship quickly and the packing is no-frills — bubble mailers with products wrapped in tissue, but I’ve never had any problem with product damage.

Swatch!

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Stila Convertible Color in Orchid: $9.99 via AllCosmeticsWholesale

Provenance: Purchased

Price/Value Ratio (high-end: poor/fair/good/excellent): I think I gave Stila’s CC’s a “fair” at regular prices. At this deeply discounted price, Excellent.

Purchase again? Yep.

(Have you used this product? Love it? Hate it? Want it? Give a holler in the comments!)

Review: NARS Multiple Tints (Cadaqués, Beverly Hills)

By Voxy  |  2010/07/11 07:00 Posted in blush, Product Reviews  |  Comments (0)

Continuing with the “Voxy’s Greatest Hits of Summer 2010″ trend, please to meet NARS Multiple Tints.

The NARS Multiple is supposed to be an all-in-one product on a stick. Or, in stick form. Or something. NARS says you can use them on eyes, cheeks, or lips. They’re one of those cult-classic items that people seem to either love or hate, and up until now, I’ve been a hater. It’s true! I have. This is because — and this does not justify my being a hater, but it may explain it — all of the existing NARS Multiples are so shimmery that they give me that “Tin Man’s Girlfriend” look.

So when the new Multiple Tints for summer 2010 came out, and they were sheer and shimmer-free, I could no longer harden my voxalicious heart. And when there was a NARS sale online, I had to give in and say, “Come to me, o shimmer-free goodness.”

NARS came out with three shades of these tints: Cadaqués (cool pink), Beverly Hills (sheer coral-red), and Turks & Caicos (orange; not reviewed here). As you know, I’m a big fan of non-powder blushes, so I was prepared to like these a lot, and I was not disappointed. What did surprise me was that of the two I bought, I expected to prefer the Beverly Hills shade, but I actually find the Cadaqués more flattering on my NW20 skin.

These look incredibly bright in the container, but they go on very sheerly indeed. And whereas I find that my Tarte cheek stains are best applied by dotting and blending, these seem more user-friendly in that you can actually stroke the product along your cheekbone once or twice and then blend from there. I find that using this technique with the Tarte cheek stains results in too much product, but the NARS Multiple Tints are so sheer that you can get away with this, making for a faster application that needs less blending. These have nice staying power; I apply over cream foundation or tinted moisturizer and set with HD powder and they last on cheeks all day with minimal fading.

Cadaqués and Beverly Hills are suitable for both cheeks and lips; they don’t have a tremendous lot of staying power on lips (even over TFLI) and they have a bit of an odd taste, but you could get away with it. Because of the aforementioned sheerness, though, they don’t give any coverage for lips, just a bit of a tint. Trying to apply the product on lips directly from the container is also a little awkward; don’t expect a precise line.

These are LE products for Summer 2010, so if you want ‘em, grab ‘em.

Swatch!

Left: Beverly Hills; Right: Cadaqués

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NARS Multiple Tints: $38 each (also available at Sephora, online only)

Provenance: Purchased.

Price/Value Ratio (high-end: poor/fair/good/excellent): Fair. You get a lot of product, but just like the Tarte cheek stains, you’ll never use one up. I’d rather pay less for a smaller product.

Purchase again? Yes, if there are more shimmer-free colors.

(Have you used this product? Love it? Hate it? Want it? Give a holler in the comments!)

Review: MAC Mineralize Skinfinish in Stereo Rose

By Voxy  |  2010/07/10 14:57 Posted in blush, Product Reviews, shimmer  |  Comments (6)

I would love to be able to look down my nose at the Stereo Rose hype and say that I regret buying this product and that it totally wasn’t worth the hubbub and geez! people are like sheep.

Um. Well.

The truth is that I really, really like Stereo Rose and I’m glad I snagged one. There. Sorry. Yes, I am a cosmetics ho.

MAC makes two kinds of Mineralize SkinFinish products: the regular old MSF, which depending on the shade has a texture somewhere between shimmery and frosty, and MSF Natural (“MSFN”), which have a more matte finish. Depending on the shade, either the MSFs or the MSFNs can be used as highlighters, blushes, contour blushes, bronzers, finishing powders, or, rarely, foundation powders (if you have fantastic skin and only want something to make it a little less oily without actual coverage). They are large compacts, and the powders are baked into a dome shape, so they last a long time. Most MSFs have a marbleized texture, although MAC does occasionally release one with a a different look (stripes, for example, or a more-or-less solid color).

Stereo Rose was originally released as part of the 2005 limited edition Goldplay collection. If you want to be a MAC scholar, you can go and look up swatches of Stereo Rose ’05 vs. Stereo Rose ’10 and you will discover that they are not quite the same shade, in the same way that identical twins are not really exactly identical. The rest of us, however, can just feel free to begin whooping it up over Stereo Rose ’10.

Stereo Rose, which sold out online in something less than two hours after it was released, is described on the MAC website as “Coral with golden/bronze shimmering nuances.” Describing colors exactly can be really difficult, but that’s not how I’d have worded it. To me, it’s the coppery rose of a brand-new penny. I was afraid it would be too warm for my cool-toned skin, but it is not. It’s a great blush that is in-between warm and cool shades. It does have a bit of frost in it, but that’s easily toned down with a setting powder applied over the areas in which the finish isn’t what you want. Because it is pigmented, you will want to use a skunk brush and stipple with a light touch. It is blendable and buildable, but it’s much easier to build up than take off. If you don’t have a skunk brush, a blush or kabuki will do, but you will want to just touch the brush to the surface of the product and then tap off the extra before applying to the face.

As I mentioned, Stereo Rose is sold out online on the MAC site, but you may still be able to get it at a MAC store or counter, and it will certainly be going up on eBay.

Closeup and swatch (the swatch was really difficult to take because I couldn’t get it to reflect color properly):

In real life it’s a bit pinker on my skin than it looks in this swatch; like I said, I had real trouble photographing it in a light application.

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MAC Mineralize Skinfinish in Stereo Rose: $28 (sold out at MAC online; check stores and counters)

Provenance: Purchased.

Price/Value Ratio (mid-range: poor/fair/good/excellent): Good. The thing is enormous (it’s 10 g/0.35 oz of product), so I’ll never finish it.

Purchase again? In general, I’d buy more MSFs, but there will be a limit as to how many I could actually use in my stash.

(Have you used this product? Love it? Hate it? Want it? Give a holler in the comments!)

Review: Stila Road To Radiance Palette

By Voxy  |  2010/06/30 07:00 Posted in blush, eyeshadow, Makeup, Product Reviews  |  Comments (3)

You know, for someone who says she doesn’t like palettes, I’m sure ending up with a lot of them these days.

Stila has put out a couple of exceptional bargains this summer: first the It Girl palette of three eyeshadows (including the ubiquitous shade Kitten) for $10 (review and swatches in a future post), and now the Road to Radiance mini-palette, containing four eyeshadows and a convertible color pan, also for $10.

Although I’m as much a fan of pink and purple eyeshadow as anyone (and, OK, probably more than some people), I admit that I bought this palette solely for the convertible color. I love the Stila CCs, and this shade (Hibiscus) is not produced in a full-size pan but it looked like the cool-but-not-neon-frosty pink that I’d always wanted Stila to make.

The palette is the tiniest bit gimmicky — pulling this out of your handbag would not be at all like displaying a sleek, intricate metal palette by Guerlain or Givenchy. This palette won’t get you any street cred among the Ladies Who Lunch crowd. It’s no-frills, made of cardboard, and clearly targeted towards the younger set. (It does, however, have a mirror, which is a plus.) The eyeshadows, while not bad, are not quite up to the usual Stila standard in terms of texture and pigmentation. I’ve heard that this is because they outsourced it to China. Even if they did, this is true of a lot of companies — their palettes are not produced at the same facilities or even in the same countries as their regular products, which is often why the quality of palettes is worse.

There are four eyeshadows: Snow Bunny (very light, frosty lavender), Valley Girl (darker lavender that goes on with a pink tinge), Southern Belle (pink), and City Chick (looks dark purple in the pan, but goes on more of a purply-brown color). Interestingly, Stila has made the (IMHO wise) decision to not even try to include a brush, or, worse, one of those horrendous sponge applicators, which are a blight on the earth and which should be permanently consigned to the Failed Cosmetic Applicator Ideas graveyard. Not only does it remove the temptation for you to use a lamentably poor applicator or a tiny brush that would (by necessity) be of lesser quality, it helps keep the palette light and sleek and the cost low. I wish more companies would do this!

So the shadows are a bit below Stila’s usual quality, but since I basically think of this palette as a $10 convertible color that happens to come with some bonus eyeshadows, this is all OK with me. The quality of the convertible color is quite nice; I haven’t noticed a significant difference in quality between this and any of my other CCs. The color is not quite as cool as I had imagined it would be, but it’s very nice and exceptionally wearable, and it fills a hole in Stila’s current shade offerings. Stila CCs are easy to apply and blend and they last all day without fading.

This is apparently the first of five palettes Stila plans to put out in this series, so we’ll see what the future installments look like!

I’m working on my photography skillz, so I’m trying some closeups as well as swatches on skin.

Shadows, left to right: Snow Bunny, Valley Girl, Southern Belle, City Chick; Convertible Color in Hibiscus on the right; I’ve tried to blend it out so you could imagine it as a cheek color.

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Stila Road to Radiance Palette: $10

Provenance: Purchased

Price/Value Ratio (high-end: poor/fair/good/excellent): Excellent! Let’s just hope the convertible color retains its creaminess and doesn’t dry out.

Purchase again? Depends on the cheek color, but very possibly yes. We’ll see what’s out next month!

(Have you used this product? Love it? Hate it? Want it? Give a holler in the comments!)

Review: Make Up For Ever Aqua Creams

By Voxy  |  2010/06/16 23:07 Posted in blush, eyeliner, eyeshadow, Product Reviews, trends  |  Comments (4)

I have held off on writing this review as long as I could, but the time has come.

Let’s say you have a really good student in class who, inexplicably, at the end of the term, turns in a surprisingly crappy final project. And so you send the following email:

Dear Make Up For Ever,

Ha ha! You seem to have inadvertently sent me the leftover crusty paints from your fifth grade art project in lieu of the fabulous Aqua Creams I was expecting. What a joker you are! The rest of your work is so consistently good that I am sure that this was some farcical error that we will laugh about someday. I can try to grade your product last so that you will have time to send me the utter fabulousness that I’m sure you meant to turn in.

Chortling heartily,

Voxy

::radio silence::

Uh… Oh. Really? Oh.

Huh.

All righty then.

I am going to go out on a limb as one of the few beauty bloggers who seems not to be gaga over these Make Up For Ever Aqua Creams. Seriously, everyone seems to be in love with them except me. Let me be perfectly frank — I wanted to be gaga. I anticipated gaga-ness. I positively dreamt of gagaliciousness. And it is only after several days’ testing that I have to admit defeat and say that I just can’t get my gaga on over these products.

There are, for me, three problems with these creams. First, they are not really creams. A cream should have the consistency of cake frosting. It should be, well, creamy. The texture of these “creams,” though, is more like — warning: strange comparison ahead — the baked meringue layer of a lemon meringue pie. If you tried to swirl a brush through a lemon meringue pie, which I am not suggesting that you do, you would end up with small gobs of meringue and a slightly wet brush — but you would not have a cream. Seriously, that’s what these remind me of.

Second, they are difficult to apply smoothly with either a brush or fingers. A cream should, IMHO, be more workable than these are, and no matter how careful I am, if I even approach the upper lash line, I get the cream equivalent of fallout beneath my lower lashes. And, since these are long-lasting and virtually waterproof, that fallout is extremely difficult to remove. So I can’t get the product where I want it, but it inevitably ends up where I don’t want it, and then I can’t get it off. Lovely.

Third, and I’m sorry to say this, since I have such respect for MUFE as a line, but the packaging just feels cheap. Something that costs $22 should come in a glass jar, not in a thin plastic jar with a lid that’s difficult to replace (the threads in the lid just don’t seem to want to catch — and this is true of all four of the colors I have). MAC has it all over MUFE in this regard.

I have three shades designated for eyes (#13 Warm Beige, #15 Taupe, and #22 Emerald Green) and one for cheeks and lips (#5 Peach). The peach looks gorgeous in the pot, but as soon as I dipped into it I found that immediately below the surface (which was relatively matte-looking) was a surprising amount of gold shimmer. The color is all wrong for a blush for me — and don’t even think of using it on your lips unless you are going for the Tin Man’s Girlfriend look. The #13 and #15 are OK shades, but given the problems with consistency and application, they are not going to ever be my go-to bases for neutral shadows. And while the #22 Emerald Green shade is a gorgeous color, it proved surprisingly difficult to work with in building a base for a look with green + blue, gold, or brown shadow. I also really wanted #19, which is a fabulous purple, but it’s not being sold in the US because apparently there is an ingredient that’s not cosmetically approved here.

I’ll keep them, and find ways to use them, but I confess myself greatly disappointed.

Maybe you’ve had better luck? I’m open to my mind being changed…

Swatches!

#5 Peach, #22 Emerald Green

#13 Warm Beige, #15 Taupe. Don’t ask me why my skin appears white in this one. I give up.

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Make Up For Ever Aqua Creams: $22 (Sephora exclusive at the moment)

Provenance: Purchased

Price/Value Ratio (high-end: poor/fair/good/excellent): Oooh. Toughie. If I liked the product, I’d probably say Fair. (The packaging really does bother me.) Given that I don’t like the product, I’m going with Poor.

Purchase again? Doubtful.

(Have you used this product? Love it? Hate it? Want it? Give a holler in the comments!)

Beauty on the Cheap — Review: e.l.f. Studio Blushes

By Voxy  |  2010/05/29 07:00 Posted in blush, Product Reviews  |  Comments (1)

I’ve been on a cream/gel blush kick lately, so it would have had to take something that was both seriously good and seriously cheap to tear my attention away from my MUFE, tarte, and Stila cream/gel blushes. Unfortunately, I found something that was indeed both seriously good and seriously cheap: e.l.f. Studio Blushes. I bought four, for a total cost of … $4.80.

Nope, that is not a typo. I am cheating a little bit here, because I took advantage of a one-day sale that was 60% off of some products, but still — even at regular price these e.l.f. studio blushes are only $3 apiece.

E.l.f. stands for Eyes Lips Face, and they are a line you can generally find in Target and drugstores, although selection at each location may vary. Some stores carry e.l.f.’s studio line, and some don’t. Many of their products are $1. Yep. One measly dollar. And what’s interesting is that for that one smackeroo you often get a pretty darned good product — and for the studio-line products, which are only slightly more expensive, you often get a very good product indeed. On the interwebz, you can often find favorable comparisons of these studio blushes to NARS blushes, which cost $26 apiece.

These blushes are nicely pigmented and have a surprisingly smooth skin feel for a $1.20 $3.00 product. The colors shown above are, from left to right: Candid Coral (er, coral), Tickled Pink (a neutral-to-warm pink), Fuschia Fusion (deep pink with shimmer), and Pink Passion (very bright, very cool pink, almost neon). I’ve swatched them all (as you’ll see below) but have only worn Candid Coral and Tickled Pink out in public so far. You will want to start slowly with these and build up the color; it’s very easy to get way too much product on the brush and then end up with too much on your face. Tap the brush into the product (rather than press it in or sweep it across the surface of the powder), tap the brush firmly on the back of your hand or arm, and then start applying. Once you’ve used these once or twice you’ll be able to adjust your technique and figure out exactly how much product to pick up so you don’t need those extra steps, but in the beginning, better safe than sorry.

Swatches! You can see I’ve applied these very lightly to show you what kind of subtle effect you can get on the face, but the color will build up to pretty much exactly what it looks like in the pan if you keep going. The Fuschia Fusion one is quite glittery, which doesn’t really show up in the photo.

Left to right: Candid Coral, Tickled Pink, Fuschia Fusion, Pink Passion, same order as in the photo at the top of the post.

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e.l.f. Studio Blushes: $3 apiece (but the e.l.f. website often has sales, so stay tuned)

Provenance: Purchased

Price/Value Ratio (drugstore: poor/fair/good/excellent): Excellent. Better than excellent! Fantastic!

Purchase again? Absolutely.

(Have you used this product? Love it? Hate it? Want it? Give a shout-out in the comments!)