Oh man… Tarte Amazonian Clay Blushes… you have stolen my heart over and over again over the years. In my whole collection, Tarte blushes are the ones that are definitely the most numerous – be it in singular format, or in palettes – I’ve got a lot of them!

I really feel like Tarte‘s blushes are the original powerhouse behind the brand. In my mind, they’re the real reason the brand started to get more and more recognition about eight or so years ago. Everyone was picking up these blushes, and with good reason – they are LOVELY!

The Amazonian Clay Blushes have gone through a little bit of repackaging over the years I’ve been  snatching them up. They used to come with a little swirl pattern around the logo (which I preferred), but in more recent years they’ve removed the flower swirl and put only their logo on the front of the compact.

I also love that you can pop out each pan from their compact! And this isn’t a new feature either – the shot above of is of my oldest Tarte blush (Blissful) and I think it’s about 7 years old! This is fantastic for people who like to depot their blushes – you won’t have to deal with breaking up the glue to remove the pan and risk smashing your powder.

My single pan compacts get a lot of love from me. Blissful was the first shade I ever owned (my husband bought it for me for Christmas one year), and I just fell head over heels after that. Exposed is clearly my most used (that’s the one with the pan showing!) – it’s the most boring shade in the pan, but holy smokes does it ever look gorgeous on the cheeks! It absolutely transforms my face! Natural Beauty (the red) is a shade I go back to all the time for that “come in from the cold” look that I’m fond of in the winter (plus it works GREAT for any red lipstick or red eyeshadow look I put together!).

Heavily swatched, the Tarte Blushes are full of pigment and colour, but don’t worry, they blend out easily. One thing worth mentioning is that I do find the product to be a bit stiff in the pan. While they do bush out nicely, you need a solid brush to pick up the colour. I find that most “typical” blush brushes don’t work very well, so I prefer to use a short duo fiber brush like the MAC 130 to work the blush into my cheeks.

I never picked up the Pin Up Girl Palette, but a lovely reader of mine (hi Tanya!) sent this holiday launch to me a few years back when she realized how much I loved Tarte blushes!

What I love about this particular palette is that the breadth of colours was extensive – it pretty much runs the gamut from nude through to mauve. I was incredibly impressed with the variety – this is what I love to see in a blush palettes! I want wildly different colours, not iterations of the same colour over and over again.

I’ve saved the best for last – Tarte‘s Off The Cuff palette from Holiday 2013. This palette is a mainstay in my travel makeup bag – I take it practically everywhere with me because the blush colours are (once again) extremely varied, AND it has a bronzer in it! I wish more blush/face palettes were like this one – give me a bronzer and/or highlighter alongside the blushes please!

Crave is easily my favourite shade in the palette as it’s a bright coral, but I’ve also fallen really hard for Dollface. Dollface is one of those shades, much like Exposed, that everyone used to talk about. For me, it’s not a shade I’m drawn to because it’s a cool-toned baby pink and to me that shade is too “girly” for my liking. Well low and behold it’s hands down one of the most flattering shades I own!

Final Thoughts

I freaking LOVE Tarte‘s blushes! While I don’t find myself snatching up all of the latest colours or palettes in more recent years, it’s because I’ve already got such a huge array of shades in my collection via singles and palettes. Exposed and Blissful are my absolute favourite shades, and thankfully they’re both still available (a few of the shades mentioned in this post have been discontinued over the years). And the fact that I actually hit pan on a blush? Well that speaks volumes I think! (It’s literally the first and ONLY blush I’ve ever hit pan on!)  My only regret? I never got the shade Tipsy while it was available – it will forever be the one that got away!

Tarte Amazonian Clay Blushes can be purchased on sephora.ca for $38 CAD each or on sephora.com for $29 USD each.

The blush "Sensual" was sent to me for consideration, a reader sent me the Pin Up Girl palette and everything else was purchased by me. Post contains affiliate links.