Urban Decay Afterglow Blush in Bittersweet (Review, Swatches & Look)
I’m having one hell of a moment with blush lately! First there was the Laura Geller Vivid Swirl blush in Guava, then there was the Blush Tag, quickly followed by me professing my undying lover for the Smashbox Culver City Coral trio and now… this Urban Decay Afterglow blush in Bittersweet.
In my April haul post, I pointed out that I didn’t really have a purple blush in my collection (not that many people do) and I had been eyeballing the one Natalie had reviewed several months back over on Ivory Avenue. I waited until the recent 15% off sale at Sephora and then snatched it right up.
I’ve heard a few back and forth comments on the packaging for these blushes, but personally I’m a fan. I think it’s quite sleek and I like the gunmetal colour of it. The lid could really do with a mirror in it, but hey, you can’t win ’em all! I think the colour of the blush is supposed to show through the meshing in the lid, but it doesn’t really work in practice since you can’t really see much of the colour coming through. What DOES work though is how each sticker on the bottom is colour coded to match the blush. It may not be easy for large blush collections, but it does help makes the colours stand out a bit more when you’re trying to rifle through your collection.
Bear with me here – I’ve got a few thoughts tumbling around in my brain that I want to get out and it’s kind of amusing that it’s the result of this blush.
I’ve got a lot of products in my collection (makeup collection video here!) – from items I’ve bought myself and from items I’ve been sent as a result of having a blog and having some kind of an influential voice on the internet. As my collection has grown as a result of all of this, I’ve started to become more and more selective of the items I purchase. There’s always something new and exciting out there (and my god do I ever fall prey to the hype as much as anyone else), but often the products that are being put out there are a reformulation of the same shades of pink we’ve been seeing for years. Or shades of coral. Or rosy taupe. And those are all wonderful shades, but like any devout beauty addict, I’ve ended up with an awful lot of near identical colours in my blush collection.
So THAT’s why I wanted this blush because, for once, I own nothing like it and I can actually say that without it being a tongue in cheek comment. (I still want every shade of coral ever created though… just saying.)
The other thought I had after buying this blush was “Am I even a person that WEARS purple blush?”, quickly followed by a fearful one: “Is this the one product that I finally decide that *I* can’t wear???”
But hell no it’s not! I LOVE THIS FREAKING BLUSH! When I first applied it my eyeballs kind of popped out of their sockets because it was just SO MUCH PURPLE on my cheeks. I blended it out with my foundation sponge to decrease the intensity, but I quickly found myself applying more and more. In these shots, it actually ended up looking quite pink on my cheeks in comparison to my eyeshadow, but rest assured – it is PURPLE.
Bittersweet shocked me because there’s some sort of weirdass ethereal quality going on with it. It looks totally otherworldly/corpse-like (I’m sure that’ll turn a LOT of people on… haha) to me in person but maybe that’s just because I’m not used to seeing myself wear purple blush?
Final Thoughts
I suppose there are some of you out there that want a real review out of this post! So here’s the run down: Urban Decay‘s Bittersweet blush is only billed as an 8 hour blush (weird time frame – that barely even covers a day at the office!), but it lasts far closer to 10-12 hours on me. It may last even longer, but I haven’t put it to the test. It is relatively easy to blend although not the easiest. That may possibly be due to the colour being rather incongruous to my skin colour when compared with pink or coral. On me, I find Bittersweet oddly flattering. It doesn’t look natural at all because obviously no one flushes purple, but I think that’s what makes it unique. It’s *oddly* flattering on my skin tone and honestly? It makes me smile. And any makeup product that makes you smile when you’re wearing it is well worth the money.
I’m curious to hear your thoughts on this particular shade of blush. Is this a shade you would wear or want to try? Do you like the idea of it being slightly odd looking? Or is that too much of a turnoff for you? Let me know!
Urban Decay‘s Bittersweet blush (along with other shades!) can be purchased on sephora.ca for $32 CAD or on sephora.com for $26 USD.
Swatch Sunday: Mehron Fire
This palette by Mehron was practically screaming my name at IMATS New York!
The Mehron Fire palette comes encased in a sleek black plastic package and has an ENORMOUS mirror in the lid.
They are marked as “pressed pigments” however, so I’m not entirely positive if they’re considered eye safe. (I’d use them on my eyes regardless though.) One thing I thought was odd was that even though this is the Mehron FIRE palette, there isn’t a red shadow in there! And even more bizarrely, when Jen and I saw this palette at IMATS, we were both convinced the pink was a red. Something weird was going on with the lightning at the Mehron booth!
Mehron Fire Swatches
Skincare Saturday: The Body Shop Drops of Youth
Throw the term “youth” or “youthful” into any kind of skincare and women will gravitate towards it like moths to a flame. The Body Shop‘s Drops of Youth skin care collection “uses plant stem cell technology, along with other ingredients to achieve younger-looking skin. Enriched with Edelweiss, Sea Holly, and Criste Marine, these plant stem cells help to protect, firm, and renew skin, leaving skin refreshed and smooth”.
So basically, this is for those of us looking to get a bit more bounce back into our aging skin. The Body Shop put it nicely, but this is definitely geared towards maturing skin!
The Youth Concentrate “is a quick-absorbing, non-sticky concentrate, that leaves your skin feeling instantly softer”. It features a dropper like system which… for the life of me… I suck at using. Does anyone else have this problem? I can only get about half a dropper full every time I use one (and it’s not just this one… I have the same issue with foundation too!). The Youth Concentrate is like a very liquid gel formula that feels a little bit slippy on the skin.
The Youth Cream “is a lightly air-whipped face cream that leaves a flawless, velvety-soft finish to the skin”. It definitely has that whipped cream consistency, but there’s a hint of gel-like formula to it. It’s far lighter feeling than more creams which is a huge bonus for those who don’t want something heavy on their skin.
Both products have a lightly organic scent that was inoffensive to my nose.
My Thoughts
The Youth Concentrate is neither here nor there for me as I didn’t feel like it did a whole lot on its own. It did sink into my skin very quickly and I wasn’t left with any kind of tacky residue on my skin which I highly appreciate. However, I can’t use the Youth Concentrate on its own because my skin just doesn’t feel hydrated enough with it. I found myself using the Youth Concentrate first, waiting a minute for it to dry, then applying the Youth Cream on top. Doing this made my skin feel refreshed and hydrated. I was also able to apply my makeup within ten minutes and haven’t suffered any kind of makeup meltoff like some overly hydrating creams can be.
The Youth Cream was definitely the winner out of these two products for me. I could use it alone or with the Youth Concentrate and it performed exactly the same. I love how the pot looks and feels solid and has a decent weight to it. I know a lot of people look for SPF in their moisturizer, but I prefer not to have one and apply my own whenever I need it, so for that reason I am REALLY happy that this one doesn’t haven’t SPF in it. Worth noting though: this is a lightweight formula, so for those with excessively dry skin, you may want to look at something a bit more moisturizing. My “reasonably” dry skin was just fine with the Youth Cream however!
The Body Shop‘s Drops of Youth can be purchased on thebodyshop.ca and on thebodyshop.usa.com.
The products featured in this review were sent to me for consideration.
Fitness Friday: Reykjavik Spring Half Marathon
I was in Iceland for just over a week last month, and in true Chelle-style, I decided to find a race while we were there!
The only one happening while we were there was the Reykjavik Spring and Autumn Marathon. Thankfully, almost every marathon event has a half marathon tacked on to it as well. Good thing for me since there was no way I wanted to run a full! I was pretty excited to run this one because I had pictures of gorgeous vistas while running and I knew I would love the temperature since it would be somewhere in the range of 0-10C.
Sadly, I was so exhausted the morning of the race that I was very close to saying “forget it, I’m not doing it”. Our rented apartment in downtown Reykjavik was on a decently busy street (Laugavegur) and I hadn’t managed to fall asleep until after 4 am. The race was at 10, so I was up at 8 am to have breakfast and sort myself out. I felt absolutely wrecked. I was near tears I was feeling so awful. The only thing that kept me going was knowing that if I finished this, I could scratch off yet another country on my running list AND the fact that I had told sooo many people that I was doing this that I would’ve felt like such a chump to go back to Canada and told people I had bummed out of it. Never EVER underestimate the power of telling people your plans. Doesn’t matter if it’s fitness related, or something else – telling people you’re going to do something gives you a lot of mental power. I am absolutely convinced that is one of the only reasons I even got my butt out of bed that morning to run this damn half marathon.
We took the local bus out to the race start zone (David came with me), and I was nauseous the whole way there. I was even worried that I’d get 10k into the race and then just be like “nope, I’m done”. So suffice to say… I had no idea how this was going to go.
So how did it go? Well, not great. The weather was misty and rainy and there was a lot more uphill than I was expecting. It was so foggy/misty that there honestly wasn’t a ton to look at either. It was an awkward temperature that I didn’t really have the right clothes for it (that purple Lululemon thing you see was far too heavy and not rain repellent – and yet, had I not worn it, I would’ve frozen my butt off). I was slow and tired, but I just kept telling myself “just finish it. Just run at a pace where you don’t want to die, and just finish it”. One of my mantras in my head no matter what I’m doing is “just keep pushing” and it really helped me after the 18th and 19th kilometers.
I clocked in with a chip time that was easily my worst half marathon timing to date: 2 hours, 19 minutes and 49 seconds. Given my slow pace and exhaustion, I actually thought I’d be closer to 2.5 hours, so I’m happy I managed this in under 2:20! In hindsight, I’m really, REALLY happy I did this race, but my god… that morning was really rough.
We came back to the airbnb we’d rented, I took a decent photos of myself with my medal and then I promptly got back into bed and slept for another four hours. What a bizarre experience… get four hours of sleep, get up, run a half marathon, then go home and go right back to bed. Like a bad dream or something!
I have to say though… a huge thank you to the organizers of this race. It was a very small group for both the half and full (under 300 people total), but it was well organized and the water stations were well-manned and easy to access. When I asked one of the organizers about how to get the local bus back to central Reykjavik, he actually found someone who drove us instead. I usually prefer far larger groups for races since there’s more of an “epic” feeling to them, but the size of this race allotted us the comfort of a safe drive home in a warm vehicle with good company. I really can’t thank them enough!
And there’s the course above as tracked by my Garmin. It was a loopback course, so we covered the same ground twice. Thanks so much to Pétur Helgason and Torfi Leifsson for some of the photos in this post.
So there we have it! Five countries (Canada, USA, Austria, Czech Republic and now Iceland) on my completed race list, and hopefully many more to come.
Race Summary
- Finish Time: 2:19:49
- Pace: 6:37 per kilometer
- Overall placement: 199/221
- Gender placement (F): 71/85
- Category placement: Not available