I’ve been long lamenting the fact that I haven’t been enjoying many face palettes in the last few years. I feel like ever since Tarte released their Off The Cuff palette (in 2013 for crying out loud!), I just haven’t been happy with anything else. And since it’s six years later now… well, I can definitely say I’ve been looking a long damn time for something fresh and new that could even come close to rivaling that Tarte palette. Well… I think I’ve found it!

And it comes to us courtesy of Benefit taking some of their existing blush shades, whacking them in a new format of palette and tossing in brand new highlighters. While I’ve always been interested in Benefit‘s blushes and bronzers, I’ve never been attracted to the box packaging. (So much so that I had a Hoola bronzer and ended up decluttering it because I just couldn’t get down with the box.) So this packaging immediately drew me in because of so many factors: no boxy packaging, no brush (honestly that weird straight cut “brush” they put in their boxes is just garbage) and it’s in cardboard packaging which is a personal favourite of mine. Heck, I even like the name Cheekleaders. How cute is that??

I was *EXCITED* to try these out!

The first Cheekleaders I ended up playing with is an all in one face palette. This is the Mini Bronze Squad and it comes with their traditional Hoola shade, their Gold Rush blush, and a brand new highlighter called Cookie.

I already knew I liked Hoola from having had it in the past, so that was a win. I was impressed with the reflective ability of Cookie, and then I was kind of like “well okay” to Gold Rush since it seemed like such a boring shade. I should’ve known better though…

…since some of my most loved blushes look the most boring in their pans. And sure enough, the combo of Gold Rush, Cookie and Hoola was a frigging knockout! I love how Gold Rush adds a bit of colour to my cheeks without going overboard, and then Cookie comes in with a glowing ethereal bang!

So the Mini Bronze Squad trio? Amazing. My compliments to the chef!

Although I tried the bronze squad first, I was the most intrigued by the Mini Pink Squad. Likely because Galifornia is MY kind of coral, and I’d heard that Dandelion was a lovely every day shade.

Sure enough, Galifornia is an absolute stunner. Although I have to say Dandelion seemed kind of dusty in a swatch. Tickle, the highlighter, while it fits the pink theme of the palette, is definitely a colour I don’t tend to reach for as much. It’s a pink/lavender shift with a slight gold reflect to it. It’s actually fairly unique, and once I got used to the concept of the shade, I ended up loving it too.

For this look I’ve got Dandelion on my cheeks with Tickle as a highlighter on top. I feel like Dandelion performed a lot like Gold Rush does, albeit pinker. It definitely wasn’t the dusty mess that the swatch led me to believe. It’s a soft “boring” shade, but it does wonders on the cheeks to liven them up. Tickle is definitely a softer highlighter when compared to Cookie from the previous palette, but I think it works out well with the more pink tones of the blushes in this palette.

And finally – my favourite shade – Galifornia. This is definitely the strongest blush I’ve used by Benefit – it’s incredibly pigmented, so be sure to go in with a light hand.

If you can believe it, the Tickle highlighter actually helped to subdue a bit of the colour of the blush which was kind of interesting.  It grounded the blush a bit more than I think a super bright highlighter would’ve done.

All in all though? Another fantastic trio!

Final Thoughts

Holy crap, am I ever in love. I had initially liked the look of these Cheekleaders palettes before I even played with them, but once I got to using them on my face I was even more impressed. The colours just work together, and I didn’t feel the need to reach for different face products outside of these trios for a few weeks. I know Benefit‘s boxed powders aren’t anything new, and many people have been loving them for quite a long time, but as I said at the beginning of this post – I was so turned off by the box packaging that I just never bothered to pick any of them up outside of Hoola. Now that I have them in a mini compact form I am so, so in love with them. And what’s exciting about these is that they retail for $40 CAD each – which is the price of one of their regular size bronzers or blushes (which, unless you’re pummeling through only one blush year ’round – you will NEVER finish). So for my $40 CAD, I’m getting three powders at 2.5 grams each which I think is frankly incredible. Well done Benefit, I love these so, so much!

The Benefit Cheekleaders Trios can be purchased at sephora.ca for $40 CAD or on benefitcosmetics.com for $30 USD.

The products featured in this post were sent to me for review. Post contains affiliate links.