It’s finally autumn, and I am HERE for it! The cool, crisp air, the scent of the wind (yes – actually), the layering of clothing, HALLOWEEN… there is nothing I don’t love about this season!
I’m feeling particularly autumnal this year so I thought I’d do a post on the five blushes that scream fall to me. I’ve pulled them out of my collection and put them directly on top of my vanity so as to make sure I’m getting a ton of use out of them. They fall into the darker, more warm side of things. It’s kind of funny to me that I reach for darker blushes as my skin gets paler due to lack of sun… but these truly are the blushes I reach for during this time of the year. Not a single blush is new to me – they were all purchased prior to 2018, so you *know* they’re favourites!
The first one is MAC‘s Gingerly. I was heavily influenced to buy this blush when I saw Allison Anderson (formerly Amarixe) talking incessantly about this blush during the earlier days of her YouTube career. I always thought the shade looked ridiculously ugly in the pan. I mean it’s basically a warm brown – how the heck is that supposed to look good on my cheeks??
And yet somehow it does. It definitely gives more of an orange cast on the cheeks than the pan would lead you to believe, which means that it works with a lot of the eye looks I create during this time of year! (If you want to see more details on this eye look, you can take a look at this post from 2015.)
Too Faced‘s Peach Berry is the newest product in this whole post, but it’s a good one. I picked it up during the launch of Too Faced’s Peaches & Cream collection last year because it appeared to be the most unique shade in the launch. It’s a super dark berry shade that typically scares people off, but if you apply this with a light hand it blesses your cheeks with a gorgeous cranberry tone.
I’m super pale in the shot above because this tutorial was filmed back in March or April, but you can see how it doesn’t come across too dark or too strong on my cheeks. I promise you this shade will work for pale skin!
Although I don’t wear this Cargo Mendocino blush very often, it’s managed to sneak through several of my blush declutters simply because it’s incredibly unique and I don’t have anything similar to it in my collection. At first glance it’s a dark cranberry-mauve, but when you swatch it it has the most beautiful gold flecks scattered throughout the formula. The glitter flecks aren’t super apparent on the face though, so don’t be too worried about looking like a disco ball.
I do tend to wear this one rather heavily, and I really couldn’t explain why to you because it doesn’t swatch that strongly (swatches for all these shades are below). I love pairing it with a similarly coloured lip colour for that “matchy-matchy” look. (Post with this look can be found here.)
Next up is Clinique‘s Cheek Pop in Cola Pop – a long, LONG time favourite of mine, although you wouldn’t know it from the lack of wear on the embossed flower! Cola Pop is the shade that got me into wearing darker blushes because I quickly came to realize it was all in your application. You can wear this lightly if you want, but I tend to be heavy handed with my blush because I actually want to SEE it on my cheeks – none of this “barely there” nonsense thankyouverymuch!
Despite the pan colour, Cola Pop comes out very red on me. Dare I say the perfect red? For me this is that perfect “came in from the cold” cheek colour. And really, I need it in a blush, because when I actually flush from the cold I turn hella blotchy!
The very last shade I have to mention is BECCA‘s Songbird, and I hadn’t realized just how similar it is to MAC’s Gingerly – it’s only a hair deeper and slightly more orange. BECCA’s blushes have a beautiful formula – one of the most pleasant to apply and blend out.
And of course, since I do like to match, I pair this with a lot orange and red toned eyeshadow looks (like this one from my Anastasia Beverly Hills Modern Renaissance post).
You know it’s funny – when I collected these shades from my collection, my initia; reaction was that they were all way too similar to each other and wouldn’t look like much in swatches. But now that I see them all side by side there are definite tone differences between them all (well, yeah, obviously between the more red ones and the orange ones, but you know what I mean!).
As I mentioned at the top of this post, none of these are new shades to me. These are ones I go back to every single fall and winter because I know they work beautifully on me and I absolutely love the shades.
Let me know if you’ve got any seasonal blushes you reach for every year!
The BECCA Songbird blush was sent to me for consideration many moons ago, the rest were all purchased by myself. Post contains affiliate links.
