For the holiday season, Becca has released the Blushed with Light palette, which includes three exclusive blush shades.
And I won't be buying.
I have mixed feelings about Becca, especially with their limited edition products. Earlier in the year, Becca released a collection in collaboration with YouTube personality Jaclyn Hill, and it quickly came to everyone's attention that the quality of the eyeshadow palette was very poor and was made up of the same formula as some very inexpensive drugstore eyeshadows. Becca changed over $40 for the palette, and it was clear that they were uncharging customers to cover sharing profits with Jaclyn Hill. This rubbed everyone the wrong way, and Becca pulled the eyeshadow palette off the market. And that was pretty cool. So while I am very disappointed that Becca went through with the cheap formula while still charging for their traditional formula, I like that when people complained and the change in formula came to light, they pulled the product. Had the issue never come to light, would Becca have pulled the palette? I don't know. I'm inclined to think not, of course, but maybe that is too cynical of me.
Because of that, I am now wary of all Becca products, but especially the limited edition releases. I would like to think that Becca learned a valuable lesson and won't make cheap limited edition products with high price tags again, but every company does it, so it's not a stretch to think Becca would too. However, I have been pleased to see this palette get generally positive reviews.
Even still, I'm not buying it.
From Becca, I have owned the Ombre Rouge palette, Ombre Nudes palette, Backlight Priming Filter, Shimmering Skin Perfector Pressed in Opal and Moonstone, and blushes in Wild Honey and Flowerchild. I think I have tried a fair selection from the brand. I finished the Backlight Priming Filter and don't plan to repurchase, and have kept everything except for the Ombre Nudes palette and the two blushes.
Let's talk about those. I purchased Flowerchild:
Photo: Temptalia
And Wild Honey:
Photo: Temptalia
I actually really don't like Becca blushes, and I realize I might be in the minority with that. Flowerchild was the worst offender for me in terms of formula. I would lightly dab my brush into it, and a TON of powder would kick up. It was easily the messiest blush in my collection, which would always dissuade me from using it. Wild Honey didn't kick up quite as much power, but it would still kick it up.
Flowerchild was absolutely beautiful when swatched on the back of my hand, but it did not translate at all onto the skin. I have texture to my skin and enlarged pores, and Flowerchild illuminated every flaw in my skin. My skin looked older and very shiny.
Wild Honey made my skin look a little dirty. This color always perplexed me because it was so hyped, especially on people with a warmer skin tone. It was supposed to look like a natural flush to the skin instead of a rosy one. On me, however, it looked like an orange-brown blush, and it wasn't very flattering.
Swatches of the Blushed with Light palette look nice, but are largely unhelpful:
No one would ever apply blush that heavily onto their skin, so seeing thick swatches really doesn't help much.
But, let's look at the color descriptions:
- Wisteria—soft rose with neutral overtones
- Songbird—peachy pink (that color does not look "pink" whatsoever)
- Snapdragon—Coral
While these colors certainly look pretty in the pan and in these ridiculously thick swatches, I don't think they would quite work for my skin.
In terms of a soft rose color, I've already found the perfect blush for my warm olive skin, and that's Milani's Romantic Rose:
The "peachy pink" color isn't really a peachy pink, at least in my opinion. It looks like a color really similar to Wild Honey. And after trying and failing with several of these colors, I have found my perfect natural blush color: theBalm Balm Desert.
This blush/bronzer has enough rosy undertones in it that it really flatters my olive skin tone in a way that Songbird would likely clash with it.
And finally, in terms of a coral, such a neon color wouldn't really look that great on me. Corals in general don't typically flatter my olive skin because of the orange undertones, but the one I've found that does is Laura Geller's Cantaloupe:
This blush leans the most coral out of all of my blushes, but it also has a nice warmth and pink to it so that the orange isn't too prominent.
While the colors in my collection are certainly not "dupes" for the shades in the Blushed with Light palette, they are colors within the same family that I already own because they flatter me. And my assumption is that most people will have a soft rose blush, a warm peach, and a coral in their collections already.
And if not, most people probably have at least one blush that they love that looks great on them. And that's the thing to remember about blush palettes and blush in general. Since blush is traditionally applied in a soft, light manner, we don't typically see the full opacity of color. It is supposed to look like a flush of color on the cheek. And I honestly believe there are few colors that really look discernibly different when applied in this manner. Chances are there is something already in your collection that looks like one or more of the blushes included in the Blushed with Light palette. And for $34, if you already have one or more colors, the palette is not really worth it.
And I know that even when we know we have colors that are similar or even exact to the colors in the product we are lusting after, we are still tempted by the idea of trying a new texture or formula. Eyeshadow is my thing, so I have definitely done that many times over. I like trying new eyeshadow formulas and weeding out the slightly worse ones for their superior counterparts. But I am just not a fan of the Becca blush formula, and it is not a formula that I recommend. I think they just kick up too much powder and are a mess to work with. I already have three great blushes that I love that suit the color scheme of this palette, and I won't be buying.
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