It Cosmetics Vitality Cheek Flush Powder Blush Stain

You don't really know what pain is until you try and get the words in this products title in the right order for SEO purposes, you know. For the record these are: It Cosmetics Vitality Cheek Flush Powder Blush Stains (try saying that three times fast), which have just launched on QVC, and come in four glowing, jewel-like shades (l-r) : Magical in Mauve, Radiant in Rose, Pretty in Peony and Matte Sweet Apple.  Though the product name might be a mouthful, it's really very apt, they are definitely stains!

I don't write about blushers often on Get Lippie,  as they're just not as interesting to me as lipsticks, or perfumes or skincare, but when I get a good one, I tend to love it to death.  And when I say that these are getting a LOT of love chez Lippie at the moment, it would be a mild understatement.  Three of these Vitality Cheek Flush Powder Blush Stains (look, I didn't just spend an hour learning the name of the product only to not use it at every available opportunity, you know) turned up as part of a press gift, and I was so impressed I immediately went and ordered the fourth so I would have the complete set!  As I'm supposedly on a bit of a no-buy at the moment - we've just furnished our new flat - moving house has been the reason for my recent bit of radio-silence - this just goes to show how impressive they really are!

Swatches in the same order as picture one: Magical in Mauve, Radiant in Rose, Pretty in Peony, and Matte Sweet Apple

It's quite a feat to get powder blushes which are hugely pigmented - and I do mean HUGELY pigmented, the swatches above are one pass with a fingertip, something that you simply can't do with other powder blushes - but still appear sheer and skin-like when applied.  Normally a powder blush with this sort of pigmentation would appear chalky, or just plain dusty, but this isn't an issue here. These blushers glow like a dream once applied, even the matte one (Sweet Apple, here on the far right).  

They do look rather dark in the pan thanks to the insane pigment, and you really do need the very lightest of hands to apply (trust me on this, I looked like Aunt Sally the first time I tried to put one of these on!), but they're really the loveliest blushers (sorry, Vitality Cheek Flush Powder Blush Stains) I've tried in a very long time.  The colour applies sheerly, but brightly, with just the tiniest amount of powder on the brush. Tap lightly - once - onto the pan, do NOT swirl your brush! Seriously, you'll regret it, if you do! Apply to the apples of your cheeks and watch it last and last and last.  I swatched these on the back of my hand the first day I had them, and I still had the marks on my hands 24 hours later ... During the course of a normal work-day, which for me can mean applying my makeup at 6am or so, these will last the whole day, avoiding the inevitable 3pm loo break "oh god, I look dead" realisation that is only too common as I get older.

How did It Cosmetics do it?  I'm not sure, but I'm glad they did, they're marvellous.  It Cosmetics Vitality Cheek Flush Powder Blush Stain (or ICVCFPBS for short) are available on QVC  (not an affiliate link) for £21 each, or you can buy a set with a rather handsome brush and ICVCFPBS combined for £28. 


The Fine Print: mixture of PR samples and purchases


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Urban Decay Gwen Stefani Blush Palette and Brow Box

 I don't do much to my eyebrows (they're tattooed on, so I don't have to), but the Urban Decay Brow Boxes are lovely, and there's a special edition of them for the Gwen Stefani Collection, and it's this one in Bathwater Blonde.

Quite obviously defined for people with fairer hair than I, the brow box comes with two shades, and is most suitable for dark blondes/light brunettes.  Sadly, I am a dark brunette ... 

It comes complete with two brushes, two powders, one wax, one tiny pair of tweezers, and two mirrors, one of which is magnifying, there's really all you need to do your brows on the go.  Do you do your brows on the go though?  Admittedly I only brush mine through as a finishing touch last thing in the morning then ignore them for the rest of the day, but would a travel brow kit work for you?  Tell me, I'm curious!  It costs £19.50, but I think it's perfect for girls with medium shades of hair, there's no red in either of the shades, which is great too.

The blush kit though, I can totally get behind, even though it's a tad on the warm side.  Urban Decay describe the shades as:

Cherry - light pink satin,
Easy - deep rose w/gold shimmer,
Angel - champagne-nude shimmer,
Lo-Fi - soft bronze matte,
Hush - medium pink w/gold shimmer and
OC soft pink w/peach shift. 

So you basically have all your blusher, bronzer and highlight options covered in one palette, which I really like.  It's a good and hefty palette though, which will stand up to a fair bit of abuse in a makeup bag (the only other cheek palette I have is made of cardboard, which basically won't travel), and the pans are a decent size, so at £35 for the whole thing, it seems good value.  I'll do a Face of the Day featuring my picks of the collection (and I'll be doing a Gwen Stefani special over on my LipsNspritz hashtag on Instagram this week) some time towards the end of the week.  Light depending.

What would you pick up from the collection?

I reviewed the eye palette previously, here.


The Fine Print: PR samples.

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New CiD i-Glow and i-Bronze Minis

There is little more pleasing than a giant version of something small, or a mini-version of something rather larger.  When New CiD sent me a taster of their mini-versions of their really rather superb face powders last week, I was utterly delighted.  I'm a big fan of New CiD powders, I think they're hugely underrated for blushes, and it must be said that their i-Glow in Coral Crush is probably my favourite blusher ever - certainly it's the only one I've hit pan on twice!

They sent me i-Glows (which work as blushes or highlighters, or in the case of Coral Crush, both) in Sirocco and Ice Pop and an i-Bronze in Rio, which, if you've ever read this post, you'll know I own full-sizes in these already:

Coupled with their dinky powder brush, these are an ideal stocking filler, and a perfect addition to any makeup bag.  I'll be carrying Ice Pop around with me for blush emergencies from now on!

So, how do they measure up to the full-size versions?  Full size i-Glows and i-Bronzes are 8gms of product, and the mini-size contain 1.8g, so just less than a quarter size.  That said, these powders last and last and last though, in daily use, 1.8gms would probably last you at least 6 months, if the two year lasting power of a full-size powder is anything to measure by ...

They're just as pretty and as pigmented as the full-size powders, and cost £14 each, as opposed to the £25 for a full-size one.  The brush, also a handy makeup bag size also costs £14.  Now, I'm just off to pick up a mini Coral Crush, and I'm all set ...

You can find New CiD makeup at their website, or at Look Fantastic.

The Fine Print: PR Samples


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Dr Perricone No Makeup Skincare

The last time I published a review of Dr Perricone products ... well, let's just say it did not go down too well, so it is with some trepidation that I come to write about them again! I have found myself intrigued by the No Makeup Skincare range for a while now, so, rather in spite of myself, I found myself forking over a bunch of cash in John Lewis recently for the core products, and wondering how I'd get along ...
  

Clinique Sculptionary Cheek Contouring Palette - 02 Defining Berries

Contouring is the trend that just will not die, isn't it?  Here's yet another ostensibly "contouring" product, the Clinique Sculptionary Cheek Contouring Palette in 02 Defining Berries, which is actually just a (very) beautiful blusher, and is all the more useful for it not being another pan of brown goop. Since it turned up, I've not wanted to use any other cheek product at all...

A set of three colours, one a deep "contour" shade, a medium blush, and a light highlighter, the intention is to use the shades separately to create sculpted cheeks in a more natural way than the tans and taupes you usually see in a contouring kit.

In reality, I find the sections are a little too small to do this with a normal blusher brush, but then I should really admit that I do not contour.  Life is simply too short for some beauty routines (all over at home fake tan, I'm looking at you), and contouring on a daily basis is just one thing too many for me. My makeup routine takes me five minutes or so on most days, my skincare routine takes a lot longer, admittedly, but that's the way I like it.

The shades in Defining Berries have a beautiful sheen to them without being sparkly or glittery, and they produce a sophisticated, barely perceptible glow when blended and used as a blush rather than a contour kit.  Defining Berries is a perfect blush colour for me, having a little depth to the pink, and not being too warm.  There are three other shades available in-store: Defining Nectars/Nudes and Roses alongside the Berries in this post, but there are two more shades available as online exclusives, Defining Sugars and Pinks.

Whilst I'm in love with Defining Berries, I am SO OVER contouring ...

Clinique's catchily-named Sculptionary Cheek Contouring Palettes are available now, and cost £28. I'll be getting a backup.


The Fine Print: PR Sample

The Even Finer Print: We're not featuring full fragrance reviews on Get Lippie at the moment owing to illness - please see The Parosmia Diaries for more.

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ByTerry Rose Infernal Collection: Eye Powder-Kajal, Rose de Rose, and Baume de Rose Fig Fiction

It's too darn hot right now, and when that happens, my mind always starts to think wistfully about cooler seasons, I'm not a happy summer bunny, alas.  Not to mention that I always prefer the Autumn and Winter makeup collections to the ubiquitous summer bronze (with a splash of "unexpected" blue) that we've been seeing all summer every summer since, well, time began.

ByTerry is one of my favourite brands, and this micro-collection of makeup staples (the wider collection has two fragrances and some really lovely skincare, which I'll tell you about another time) is a lovely one:

Yeah, 'scuse the finger marks, I couldn't wait to try the lipbalm.  Sorry!  Not sorry.

Consisting of a triple-shade blush in Rose Infernal, a powder eyeliner in Oriental Black, and for the first time the iconic lip balm, Baume de Rose comes in colour! There are six shades, and this is number 5 Fig Fiction.

The Rose de Rose contains three shades, a pink-coral, a salmon-peach, and a pearly pink highlight.  It comes complete with a small brush, and a good-sized embossed mirror.  It does kick up a lot of dust on application, but it's really nice - pinker than you'd expect - colour on the skin:

This has been applied with a heavy hand to get the colour to show up in pictures, but a lighter application leaves you with a sheer pink rosy glow that looks almost lit from within.  The different colours are probably too small to be able to get to the individual shades with the average blusher brush, but the pan is a great size for swirling. The powder smells divinely of roses, as does almost everything in this collection.

I do love a powder eyeliner, I own an entire set of the Guerlain loose kohls for example, and this is a good one.  The tip of the applicator is actually a sponge, which is really handy, as it adds a bit of flexibility to the application process - Boots No7 did a limited powder liner with this kind of tip a few years ago, I've always wondered why they didn't bring it back to be honest - and with a black this black (for it is indeed very black.  Indeed) you're going to need all the help you can get when you're putting it on:

It blends out easily, and a little goes a long, long way, so if you want to do a soft but intense smokey eye, this is great.  You can see from the swatch above that there is not much grey in the formulation, so you're not going to end up with a wan, pale grey smokey eye here.  You will get a lot of fall-out with this - it is the nature of the beast with eyeliners of this nature, to be honest, there's no avoiding it - so I suggest you do your eyes first and then do the rest of your make up, and especially your base, afterwards.  It lasts and lasts, particularly on the waterline, and barely fades at all.  I've not noticed any staining, but this is a great BLACK liner.

I'm not a massive fan of the original Baume de Rose, to be honest.  It's actually a great balm, and has a really nourishing formulation, but the milky film of colour it leaves on the lips is, for me, a killer.  With that in mind, I may have given a tiny whoop of delight when I saw the six new shades of Baume de Rose recently.  This is Fig Fiction, a sheer and easily wearable plum colour.

Anything that isn't milky on the lips is a winner for me, and the sheer but not unpigmented colour is great.  With the same gorgeous rosey scent as the original, this feels nourishing and cushiony on the lips, but it IS a balm, and therefore won't last very long.  It's a pleasure to reapply (even though it does come in a pot, a particular bugbear of mine), so this shouldn't be too much of a hardship.

The ByTerry Rose Infernal collection will be instore from September (the blush costs £72, and the eyeliner will cost £29) but the coloured Baume de Rose collection is in SpaceNK now, and they cost £35 each.  I'll be picking up Cherry Bomb and Bloom Berry come payday ...

The Fine Print: PR Samples

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Makeup Revolution: Blushers in Now and All I Think About Is You

By Laurin

In 2007, against her better judgement, Her Gracious Majesty Queen Elizabeth II extended to me an offer of citizenship which I duly accepted. There was a ceremony at Lambeth Town Hall, and I came away with a souvenir photo of me looking like I’d accidentally joined the Hogwart’s branch of the BNP.

To receive this honour, I had to sit the “Life in the UK” exam, thus satisfying the British government that I did indeed know the date that women gained the right to divorce their husbands and what percentage of the population identify themselves as Muslims. There was a study guide! I made flashcards! But to get to the really useful stuff, you just have to learn by trial and error and the occasional raised eyebrow at the pub. Here’s a few of the things I wish someone had told me when I arrived at Gatwick fourteen years ago:

1. When your friend cancels your plans at the last minute, he hasn’t blown you off, he’s blown you OUT. The former means something completely different and is best not discussed in front of your mother-in-law.
2. Do not be tricked into ordering Pimms and lemonade simply because the sun is out. It is essentially a non-alcoholic beverage with added hedge trimmings, and you will need to build up your alcohol tolerance if you ever hope to truly fit in.
3. People will make assumptions about your social class based on the word you use to refer to your evening meal.
4. People will make assumptions about your social class based on the daily newspaper you read.
5. People will make assumptions about your social class based on the supermarket you most frequent.
6. Superdrug is the best chemist on the high street.

The last point eluded me until about six months ago. It only dawned just how much love there is for Superdrug when I realised that people were genuinely excited for their 50^th anniversary product editions. It seemed that every woman who spent her formative teenage years in this country had a happy memory of spending Saturday morning with a coven of girlfriends, happily wallowing in the cheap and cheerful nail varnishes and lipsticks at her local branch. I, on the other hand, had pretty much ignored them for the past 14 years, having been impressed by the fact that I could buy a lemon-flavoured yogurt from their main competitor on my first visit to these shores. So exotic! I now see the error of my ways.

Superdrug’s new cosmetics range Makeup Revolution definitely falls into the “cheap and cheerful” category, but that’s no reason for letting the teenaged girls have all the fun. I have, of late, been extremely impressed with the colour and longevity of both their powder blusher ranges.

I tested All I Think About Is You from the Vivid Baked Blusher range (£2.50, above right) and Now from the Powder Blusher range (£1, above left), and found that they performed as well as blushers at twenty times the price. The packaging is nothing to write home about, but for the price of a Diet Coke, I’m not complaining.

Now is a soft, rosy pink with an almost undetectable shimmer, while All I Think About Is You is a brighter candy pink with swirls of tawny gold. They both give a pretty, sheer wash of colour that looks beautiful on my ghostly skin, but without making me look so flushed that fellow Victoria Line commuters ask me if I’m okay. Despite the shimmer, Now actually goes on quite matte, giving it a low-key yet polished look that’s perfect for work or general daytime wear. All I Think About Is You is now my go-to blusher for a fast casual look. It makes my cheeks pop without looking too “done”, and the golden highlights mean I can skip the highlighter altogether. I get a good nine hours wear from both formulations.

I’ve not seen the range in store yet, but it’s available to order online. Get stuck in – cheap make-up is a great way of trying out a new look or colour without worrying about wasting your hard earned cash. Any other questions, give me a shout: I’ll be the girl on the houmous aisle at Waitrose with a copy of the Guardian tucked under my arm.

Makeup Revolution is available at www.superdrug.com.

The Fine Print: Purchases.

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By Terry - Cheek to Cheek: Cherry Cruise and Tint to Lip: Pink Palace

I'm a sucker for a stain.  Well, some stains, anyway - tea, spag bol, toothpaste not so much (I'm a mucky pup) - gimme a cheek or a lip stain, and I'm happy.   Particularly a lip stain.  I love my bright lipsticks, as some of you might have noticed, but it drives me bananas when they don't last.

Enter By Terry, with a couple of stains perfect for the cack-handed muppets amongst us, and I'm happy to report that they're amongst the more affordable products in her range too, which is good news!

First, Cheek to Cheek in Cherry Cruise:

 Such a pretty, bright cherry red!  It comes with an innovative dropper applicator and a pop up lid:

 The formula is bi-phase, one layer is the red pigment (referred to as a syrup in the literature, but it's not as sticky as this might make it sound), and one layer is silver shimmer, you can shake to mix the two, and have a slightly more opaque and definitely more shimmery colour, or you can just leave the shimmer to settle to the bottom of the bottle and use the "syrup" alone.

Best thing about this formula is that it is blendable.  We have all seen cheek stains that stain from the very first instant it comes off the brush - STRIPES! - and have ended up with dolly-cheeks as a result, but with this one, you just drop a drop (two if you're braver than I am), rub it onto the fingers of both hands and blend into your cheeks.  You'll have around a minute to play, and you won't get those little tell-tale circles on your mush.

However, nothing budges this stuff.  It'll look the same when you come to take it off as it did when you first applied it, and that's fabulous. Just make sure you have kind lighting in your bathroom the first time you use it, as it can be easy to overapply when you're still getting used to it.  I warn you!

Now, the Tint to Lip in Pink Palace, in the same two-phase formulation as the Cheek to Cheek above, it's purely for your lips:

Here it is both without the shimmer, and shaken to show the more opaque shimmery formula.  A cooler-leaning raspberry pink, it is unusual for a lipstain in not going completely fuchsia as you might expect on the lips.

It is ... fairly ... long-lasting.  It won't survive a sandwich, but a couple of cups of tea won't scare it completely off.  Personally, I prefer the look of the tint without the shimmer on the lips, I think it looks a bit frosty with the shimmer and that isn't a good look on someone my age, whatever the shade, but the colour, for me is perfect.  One coat is just enough to give my lips a whisper of colour, but you can build up the pigment for a more intense look.

Here you can see the differences between the colours more clearly.  A bright cherry red, and a clear raspberry.  Here's how they apply on the skin:

OBVIOUSLY I've overapplied!  But you can see how the products stay runny when applied to the skin, which is what allows you some blending time.  I wiped half of this off, and blended them out:

Again you can see the (slight) differences between the colours, and the sheen you get from shaking the product up.  However for the cheeks, you really do only need a single drop, I probably applied enough for four cheeks here.  The lips you'll probably need about two dips with the doe-foot sponge, more if you want to layer up.  Both products have the classic By Terry rose scent, but it wears off quickly, and you don't have that nasty chemical after-taste with the lipstain.

Cheek to Cheek costs £29 and Tint to Lip is £22, which, in By Terry terms, is practically pocket change.

The Fine Print: PR Samples.  Pictures for this post were taken with a Nokia Lumia 1020 lent by Microsoft.

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Top Five Favourite Blushers

Since I had my colour-draping back in June, I've been looking to replace my not-quite-right golden coral blushes with something a little cooler and pinker. For a long time, I never wore blusher at all, fearing I'd look like a clown, or Aunt Sally or something, but I realise these days that my makeup simply isn't complete without blusher, and finding the right shade is deeply important.  I've been building up this tiny blusher wardrobe for the last few months, and here are my current favourites:

Clockwise from bottom left, we have:

Cargo - Bali
Art Deco - Blush Couture
Illamasqua Velvet Blusher - Peaked
Smashbox Halo Longwear Blush - In Bloom
Laura Geller Blush'n'Brighten - Ethereal Rose/Sateen Subtle Berry

All are pinks or plums of varying intensities, except Smashbox In Bloom, which is a rather pinked coral, which is probably the brightest shade here.  Swatches:

 
 Swatched in the same order, you can see Cargo Bali has a slight hint of blue microshimmer, giving the pinkish coral a cooler overtone.  Art Deco Blush Couture is a lovely soft plum with a smooth satin finish.  Illamasqua Peaked (in the centre) is a very cool raspberry purple, which is a glorious shade, but I find it rather hard to apply naturalistically, it definitely needs a duo-fibre brush and an extremely light hand.  Smashbox In Bloom is a pretty pink-coral that is great with an extremely natural look for lightening and brightening my face.  I love it.  And then there is the Laura Geller Ethereal Rose, which is the one I've had the most use out of recently. It's probably the most subtle of the five here, but it still gives a great subtle glow, and a fabulous highlight effect.

Here's how they photograph with a flash:
 

As you can see, only Peaked and In Bloom have a matte finish.

What's your favourite blusher at the moment? 

The Fine Print: Mixture of PR Samples and purchases.

This post: Top Five Favourite Blushers  originated at: Get Lippie All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post at Get Lippie, then this content has been stolen by a scraper