NYX Stick Blush in Pink Poppy Review, Photos and Swatches

To think that about a year ago, I'd never tried any NYX products and now I use them nearly every day!

Cream blush. My goodness, I love a cream blush. As my skin ages, I find I like using cream blushes much more than powders. They give a softer effect, and don't catch on the fine hairs on my cheeks like powders do. Plus they give a soft and natural flush to the skin.

I especially love them in the summer, when my battle with the oily bits of my face is at its fruitless peak. My cheeks are normal in the summer, not oily and not dry, so when the rest of my face looks like a oil slick due to sweat and oil, powder blush looks especially incongruous on my oil-free cheeks. I tend to go lighter with my makeup in the summer, and cream blush looks very natural and light.

This post looks at one of NYX's Stick Blushes - Pink Poppy, a neutral pink. It reads on the cool side, and definitely works for my cool-toned skin but I could see it working well on warmer skintones as well.

The Stick Blushes are 6.2 g each, and cost $6 each. Here's what the NYX website has to say about them:

Add a touch of color with our creamy and extremely pigmented Stick Blush! Available in eight rich shades! Apply and receive the perfect glow every day!

NYX Stick Blush in Pink Poppy

NYX Stick Blush in Pink Poppy - ingredients

The Stick Blushes come in a stubby little twist-up tube, and the size and application-ease make it very easy to carry them with you.

NYX Stick Blush in Pink Poppy

There's not a tonne of product in these little tubes (6.2 g), but I really don't need to wear much of Pink Poppy to get the effect I want. I am fair-skinned so a little colour goes a long way, for the most part.

In the photo above you can see a teeny bit of gold sparkle. That's accurate, though I don't find that the sparkle reads on my cheeks at all. 

Here it is swatched on the back of my hand (NW15 skintone). All you do is twist up the tube a little and swipe it on. Below there is one swipe of Pink Poppy. 

NYX Stick Blush in Pink Poppy - swatched

The texture is smooth and a little tacky. Sort of gel-like. It is very easy to blend and the more moisture on your skin, the easier the blending. It dries as it sets but never looks artificial. You could use a brush or a sponge to apply and blend this, but I typically use my fingers. The warmth of my skin helps to soften and blend this into my cheeks.

See? Here it is on my face. It looks incredibly natural. The gold sparkle doesn't look artificial, and isn't really noticeable at all, but perhaps is adding to the skin-like smoothness in effect. I love how natural this looks on me.

In terms of longevity, it doesn't last as long as a powder blush, but I don't see much fading at all. Perhaps because my cheeks don't get oily, I don't look in the mirror at the end of the workday and see a tired complexion. If your skin is oily on your cheeks, I'd recommend topping the Stick Blushes with a powder blush. It'll help it to last longer. I do this sometimes too, if I want a more dramatic effect. 

Well done, NYX! I love Pink Poppy!

Grade: A

Rimmel Stay Blushed! Liquid Cheek Tint in Sunkissed Cherry Review, Photos and Swatches

Rimmel's Stay Blushed! Liquid Cheek Tint is a cream blush that comes in five shades and retails for somewhere around $5-$8 CDN. If you are a fan of cream blush, these are definitely worth checking out since they're readily available (Rimmel is a drugstore brand), and inexpensive. 

Cream blushes are worth knowing about because they give a very natural flush of colour, and a very natural (not powdery) finish. They are easy to blend and can be worn on their own, or layered under a powder blush for dimension. Cream blushes are fantastic for dry skin because powder blush on top of dry skin can enhance the dry appearance. Using cream blushes (and cream products) can give the skin a natural sheen, whether you prefer a dewy or more natural effect. 

I first heard about Rimmel's Stay Blushed! Liquid Cheek Tint in a Lisa Eldridge tutorial featuring Alexa Chung. Because I don't have a lot of cream blushes in my makeup collection, I was intrigued by a drugstore brand that a pro MUA was using on a celebrity. So I went out to buy the colour she used - Sunkissed Cherry.

The Rimmel Stay Blushed! Liquid Cheek Tints are packaged in a small white plastic tube and contain 0.47 fl. oz/14 mL of product. Here is the tube of 004 Sunkissed Cherry in my hand to show the size. 

Instructions

Ingredients

Sorry about the messy tip!

Sunkissed Cherry isn't what I'd call liquid, it's more of a mousse texture. From what I've seen online, the others in this line are also mousse-like textures, apart from 002 Touch of Berry. I actually prefer the drier, thicker texture of these to say a cheek stain liquid texture as it's easier to work with. 

It's also not what I'd call a cherry colour. Cherry is a pink-red, and this is definitely more of an orange with some pink in it, definitely a coral shade. 

Swatched on NW15 skintone

You do not need a lot of product to start with, so it's good that this is a small, squeezable tube. You can control how much comes out. With a pump, it's more difficult to control. 

Once blended out, it becomes much more liquidy. I have a lot on my hand in these photos, and this is far more than I'd used on my cheeks, but I wanted to show you how much pigment you can get from this product and also, why it's best to start with a little and to add if needed.

Sunkissed Cherry starts out wet and dries so you need to work fairly quickly. I'd say it dries to the point of being tough to work with after a minute or so. I am able to work with it easily within this time, and layer it as needed. 

In the first photo, it's just slightly blended out, and quite wet looking. 

In this second photo, it's sheered out even further, and it's dried a bit as well. 

And finally, here it is fully dry. Obviously, unless you were going for a theatrical Nutcracker look, you would not have these strong edges. But you can see how it dries without looking dry and how the skin still shows through. 

And here it is on my face. Sometimes I wear it for a natural flush of colour on days that I want a natural look, and I also will wear it layered under a powder blush if I want more of an impact. 

Wear-wise, this is a pretty longwearing product. I have combination skin - oily in the t-zone and drier on the cheeks. In the winter, my cheeks are normal to dry and in the summer, normal to oily, and this wears well all year round. I like that in the winter it allows my skin to have a healthy, non-dry texture, and in the summer, I like that it lasts despite the oily nature of my skin, and the heat and humidity. I do tend to layer a power blush on top in the summer to increase the longevity of it though. 

I plan to pick up the other shades because this is quite inexpensive and I'm impressed by Sunkissed Cherry. 

Grade: A

C.

Lancome French Paradise Blush Subtil Crème Review, Swatches and Photos

Lancome recently had a Friends and Family sale, so I picked up a few new things that I thought looked interesting. I was excited to try their new LE Blush Subtil Crème for Summer 2015, as I had read that it had a solid mousse texture similar to Colour Pop products.

I ordered Corail Alizé 01, but due to a packing mistake, I ended up with Rouge Mistral 03. When I unpacked my parcel, I was pretty disappointed considering that Rouge Mistral was the one colour out of the three I was entirely not interested in. To their credit, Lancome's customer service offered me a full refund with no hassle.

Photos in natural light, swatches on NC 40 skin.

Lancome Blush Subtil Crème in Rouge Mistral 03

So I have Rouge Mistral 03 for review. Rouge Mistral is described by Lancome as "a dapper red for the most seductive flush-cheeked look." In the pot it looks like a medium dark warm (orange) toned red with ultra fine, subtle golden shimmer throughout. On my skin, Rouge Mistral's orange tones are emphasized and the result is a deep red coral shade with a luminous satin finish.

Lancome Blush Subtil Crème in Rouge Mistral 03

Before I had purchased this product, I did some research online and found only two reviews, both of which commented on how similar all three colours of Blush Subtil Crème were when swatched (Corail Alizé 01, Brise Rosée 02 and Rouge Mistral 03, swatches of all three on My Darling Clementine and A Beauty Junkie in London.) Having swatched and used Rouge Mistral (but not having seen the other two colours in person) I'm likely to agree. Though Rouge Mistral is definitely red, it pulls orangey on me, so the overall effect is red-coral. Considering that Lancome describes Corail Alizé as " a luminous coral, subtly enhanced by tiny golden pearl pigments," one can see how interchangeable those descriptions could be!

The formula of the product is described as an "oil-free powder formula [that is] is non-greasy and non-sticky for a featherweight effect on skin... the Blush Subtil Crème formula contains no opaque base, to ensure truly vibrant colour and workable, made-to-measure intensity." The texture of the product is very silky, and has a cream-to-powder finish which is neither greasy or dry. The product has very intense pigmentation, so a light handed application is a must unless you want to look sunburnt! Like a cheek stain, this blush is transparent after being blended and fuses completely with the skin's texture. Again like a cheek stain, this product is a little tricky to blend, so it would be best to apply with a lightweight duo fibre brush or proceed sparingly with the fingers blending onto well moisturized skin.

I do believe the product lives up to Lancome's technical claims, and I like that they formulated this with "no opaque base" which gives the colours purity. I do think that the lack of opaque or white pigments in the product is what contributes to all three shades looking very similar though. Wear time is very good with only a little fading after a full day of wear.

Grade: B+

L'Oreal Spring 2013 Preview - Visible Lift Blush in Nude Life Review, Swatches and Photos

L'Oreal's Visible Life Cream Blush is new for 2013 (available in January). Suggested retail price is $16.99 CDN.

"Creating a beautiful, health and youthful flush, the new Visible Lift colour Blush recreates volume to uplift and bring cheekbones out of hiding. Featuring Tourmaline, one of nature's most naturally energizing minerals, the newest member to the Visible Lift family of products for mature skin, adds radiance and luminosity back to aging skin. Its lightweight powder in a creamy texture never settles into fine lines. A hint of shimmer gives skin a youthful glow. It has zero talc and zero wax - just rich colour pigments in six different shades to offer a glowing, healthy flush."

The shade I had to try out is called Nude Lift and is a soft golden pink with gold sparkle and shimmer. The texture is a cream that dries to a powder finish on the skin. There's a great deal of luminousness to the blush and it applies very nicely with the fingers or a brush.

The colour is a golden pink on the skin. It's an easy colour to wear and suits my cool skintone and would work well on lighter, warm toned skin. It's quite sheer so it's best for lighter skintones. On darker skintones it'd work best as a highlighter.

Nude Lift swatched on NW15 skintone

Here is is on my cheeks, layered fairly heavily. It gives me a nice, golden, almost sunkissed flush. It's very natural and easy to wear. 

Texture-wise, it's a light cream and goes on smoothly on moisturized skin (I'm wearing Garnier BB cream underneath). Since it has a shimmer and skin-like sheen to it, it can be left alone or topped with a translucent powder or another blush colour if you need a little more colour to your cheeks.

Like many drugstore brands, there isn't a lot of pigment to this blush. There's about three layers of it on my cheeks in the photos below. If your skin is fair, like mine, or you want a very natural blush, this is recommended.

As I don't have any fine lines or wrinkles on my cheeks, I can't vouch for it's not settling into them on me. I can see this working well for women who do have wrinkles. Creams tend to work much better on  lines and wrinkles and it gives the skin a dewy flush, something that the skin naturally loses as we age.

The blush lasted quite well on my cheeks, I'd say roughly 6 hours. With a powder blush on top and a primer underneath it'd last even longer, I bet. 

This is an alright blush, although I'd call it more of a highlighter since it's got more sheen than pigment. Perhaps the other colours have more pigment. For the same price or a little more, you can find better highlighters and better blushes.

Grade: B

MAC Cremeblend Blush Preview

For every contour control freak, for every persistent perfectionist comes this wondrous way to play with blush that gives you the most magnificent flexibility you’ve ever had…Starts creamy, stays creamy and proves once and for all that powder is NOT your only prerogative. You can get back to a new build for that retro “rouge” look – Old Hollywood Glamour made modern – or stop at subtle and natural; it’s all in your hands. In three aspects, two shades of each: One matched to skin, one for a brighter glow and one darker for cream contouring, it’s perfect for all skin colours, minus the silicone, particularly adept at preventing ashiness on darker complexions. Make powdery a thing of the past. 

Part of the permanent collection as of March 3, 2011.

MAC Cremeblend Blush in Brit Wit ($23.50 CDN/$19.50 US)
Dusty rosey mauve

MAC Cremeblend Blush in Ladyblush ($23.50 CDN/$19.50 US)
Warm neutral coral

MAC Cremeblend Blush in Posey ($23.50 CDN/$19.50 US)
Warm peach

MAC Cremeblend Blush in Something Special ($23.50 CDN/$19.50 US)
Light coral

MAC Cremeblend Blush in So Sweet, So Easy ($23.50 CDN/$19.50 US)
Bright yellow pink

MAC Cremeblend Blush in Tea Petal ($23.50 CDN/$19.50 US)
Mid-tone reddish brown

In stores now!

C.