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| You see? Bad. Clockwise, starting from the left: Fresh Honey, Early Morning, Subtle Breeze. All are mineralize blushes. |
I was trying to be good, you see; when I went in to see the collection, the SA (who was surprisingly sweet and helpful for a MAC associate - come on, you know that's not the norm there) applied Early Morning on my cheeks (on top of the Dior Aurora I was wearing that day) and I was smitten, but I came home and attempted to see if I had a dupe in my stash (warning - long stories and some blush pr0n here!).
At the end of the day, I wiped off one cheek, and then tested my blushes on the other cheek to compare. (This is the important thing, I feel, as some products look vastly different in arm swatches but virtually identical on the face, so I always try to swatch on my face or my eyes or wherever the product was intended to be used when I am checking for dupes.) I even got S. to help me. I'm going to share that exchange with you because it was hilarious. The partners of beauty bloggers need to start their own club, I think. They do absorb some of the nonsense we talk about!
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| This was comparison 1. They don't look alike in the pan, and they don't look at all alike on my cheeks, either. Frankly Scarlet is cooler, redder; Early Morning is warmer, browner. |
Anyway. Back to my comparison efforts. First, I tried MAC Frankly Scarlet, which from the pan, I thought would be slightly cooler and too red, but I tried it anyway. Verdict? I was correct - it's a cool, matte red on my cheeks and nothing like Early Morning. S. concurred. I moved on.
Next was Tarte Tipsy. I thought it might be close, but when I put it on it was obviously much peachier than Early Morning. I asked S. what he thought.
Me: "What do you think?"
S.: "No, that one's definitely darker (pointing at the Early Morning cheek)."
Me: "Yeah, you're right - it's warmer, more brown."
S.: "That's what I said."
Me: "What? You just said it was darker."
S.: "I'm a boy. Things are either darker, or lighter. Brown is darker, is it not?"
Me: "..."
S.: "Well, next time don't ask the color blind kid to help you, then." (He is partially shade-blind, actually. It's quite hilarious when we go climbing, as he can't always distinguish between the different colored tapes...while he's on the wall.)
The consensus was, they were still different. So I tried putting some MAC Harmony on top, to try to add some brown to the peach Tipsy. The color was getting closer, so I asked S. again what he thought.
S.: "That one...(pointing to the Early Morning cheek), I dunno if it's just because you wore it all day so now it's absorbed the oil in your face or whatever, but it's got a sheen to it."
Me: "Oh! Yeah! It's supposed to - they're mineralize blushes so they're supposed to have this glow to them." (I was utterly stunned that he noticed this, by the way).
S.: "Oh okay, yeah. It's there. The other one is...not...it doesn't -"
Me: "It's matte?"
S.: "Yeah! Yeah that."
Me: (Rummaging through and taking out the Laura Mercier Rose Rendezvous illuminator, applying it over the Tarte Tipsy + MAC Harmony combo): "Okay, how about now?"
S.: (peering closely at both of my cheeks): "No, this one (Early Morning) is like overall glowy, but the other one (Tipsy + Harmony + RR) has individual sparkles that you can see. It's still the one on the bottom plus individual glitter things on top."
Me: (absolutely astounded): "Huh. Yeah. You're right. Well." (Pause). "I guess I tried. They're not the same, after all! Hurray! I get to buy a new blush!"
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| L-R: Subtle Breeze, Fresh Honey, Early Morning, swatched with my finger. You can see that they have that "mineralize" sheen, which is glowy but not sparkly or glittery. |
And, erm, well, I bought all three...*hangs head in shame.* Early Morning is reddish-brown, nothing like the weird peachy-pink description that MAC gives it, but I prefer this shade to their imagined product. It is gorgeous.
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| I thought maybe Fresh Honey would show up brown on my cheeks, but it's definitely orangish. Harmony is brown/rose, so they're quite different. |
Fresh Honey is the second one, and I bought it because...it is orange. Orange, but not red. I like!
And then Dani made me buy Subtle Breeze. I blame her entirely. I was sitting all good with my two picks, and then she tweeted "I hope you're getting Subtle Breeze!" and I was all "Noooo...should I??? But it's pink!"
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| They all are, admittedly, quite different - even on cheeks. The other pinks I have are even cooler (actually...why do I have two of those?) and Subtle Breeze is a slightly warmer, rosier color. |
Cue conversation between Dani and Danielle about the nuances of pink blush and how it's different from the pinks I have, and there it went, into my cart. Damnit. Liz and Tracy and Paris are proud of me, I know it. They're the big boss blush fiends!
The blushes are beautiful and I don't regret springing for all three; I feel they are actually distinctly different on my face. They are definitely powdery - when you run a stiff brush against them, all kinds of fallout happens, but I just try to gently dip my brush in and it seems to be fine. Plus, blush pans are so big, I'm not really worried about running out due to a bit of fallout, you know? They are not powdery on skin - they blend seamlessly in. The pigmentation is great and they wear all day (though I typically do not have problems with blush fading over the course of a day), and they have that nice sheen (that even S. picked up on, ha!) to them which gives me a bit of a glow. None of my other blushes have that quality, since I usually pick matte or cream blushes. I like! I also need no more blush. Ever.
Okay, so that's all I bought from the collection. I passed on both MSFs and all four lipsticks because I can't pull off corpse face very well. I'm still looking for a nude lipstick, but I swatched one that I liked from Smashbox's new line (though I forgot what it was called, eh) so I'm gonna hold out for that one. I did pick up MAC Neon Orange (this time the blame is on Tracy) and the Narcissus Cremesheen. I haven't had a chance to give either of those a go yet, but they look pretty.
Did you buy anything from Naturally or Iris Apfel?
