What they say:
"The freshness of a morning stroll in a garden still damp with dew. The first sunbeams caress her blushing cheekbones. Her complexion is luminous and radiant. This is the 'healthy' promise of Cherry Blossom, a pink and peach blush with shades reminiscent of Japanese cherry trees in bloom. Ultra-lightweight and transparent, they revive cheeks left pale by the winter. These extremely soft colors will boost a natural glow in one stroke!"
What I say:
Did not like this at all, and actually returned it.
I bought this blush, after countless reviews read, and swatches looked at, thinking that maybe I could get it to work. The blush is a light pink down the middle, with peach on the outsides, and a darker pink over spray to get the blossoms to appear. The spray itself does not last long, but I expected that, hearing that the blush underneath was a peach-pink, mattish, nice shade.
I believed them. That is, I believed them, until I got the blush.
Now, let's start with the packaging. The packaging is quite lovely, and if the blush wasn't rubbish, I might have kept it for this alone. It's sturdy like a solid wood desk; large, beautiful, understated, and can take a thrashing. It clicks shut nicely, and has a certain weight to it that makes you feel like you could lob it at someone, and it would be fine. In fact, this turned out to be a good thing, because it came almost damaged. I say "almost" because if it had not been for the packaging, it would have been damaged. The outer container that housed this was trashed, ripped, and in an overall mess. The shipping box was too large, and the padding was not nearly enough. I'll hand it to Nordstrom, they didn't care when I brought it in in person to show them, and refunded it no problem.
The blush looked rather small, but some math (which I deleted, sorry) showed me that it was because the opening to the blush was rather small, but the blush should, if I was correct, be deeper than the blushes that I was used to. It was still not the best deal per ounce, but I was paying for the quality, and for the fact that I was also getting a new brand. So size wise, it could be worse.
The blush itself, texture wise, was okay. It's not the smoothest, it's not the least chalky, and it's not the most pigmented. It's nice in all three of those, but not really that great. I think it is safe to say, that at least in the blush department, you are paying for packaging and name more than you are paying for the actual product.
Now the kicker, the color. Too light. In MAC terms, the universal language, almost, of color, I am a NW20 in the summer. I'm near that in winter, as well, since I don't like to go out in the sun, but I'm still never darker than NW20. This was too light for me. It might have been a nice highlighter, but I have those, and really did not need another light pink, sheer, and especially, extremely expensive, highlighter. I was paying for a blush. I am still in awe of how light this product was. If you want to see a great swatch of it, look at Karla's post, which also shows the rest of the collection. I swear it was lighter than that in person, but that's probably a difference in the lighting.
So, sadly, or not so sadly, I returned this blush, and used the money that I got back to get myself a concealer, which I am still testing out before I review.
Overall, I have not turned my back on this brand, yet. After feeling the packaging, I really want to try something else from this brand, but this time, I want to get something that I know will work (I actually thought the blush would, so this is going to be hard). It's too bad the nearest place that carries them is over 2 hours away from me, but at the same time, this is not a brand to just buy willy nilly. It is expensive, and I, at least, will only purchase from them when I have a special reason to.
2/5
