Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Sephora + Pantone Universe Blush Duo Review (Coral/Desert Flower)


As someone on MUA said RUN do not walk to Sephora to get this item (of course I found out about it on MUA). Saw some swatches that looked very very pretty and lust took over. I've been trying my luck with orangey and peachy blushes for a while but I haven't found anything that quite works for me. I've so far bought and swapped away Nars Gilda and Illamasqua Excite which are both beautiful colours but they pull a shade of  orange that does not really suit me. I've been lusting after Illa Lover for months now but am too afraid to get it since it's another beautiful peachy colour that probably will not work for me.
Onto the Pantone collection- well there are two blushes included in the palette- a matte blush and a shimmery one.  On Sephora's website image  the matte (Desert Flower) looks very peachy and the shimmery (Coral)looks well coral. I searched for swatches online and from what I could tell Coral was a very pigmented blush in the NARS Orgasm family (peachy pink with gold shimmer) and that's my kind of blush- <3 everything peachy pink:) I figured, this gives me the opportunity to try a shade that's similar to Illa Lover and then I'll have another shade that I was sure I'll love and so I clicked Complete purchase on Sunday night! 
Guess what was waiting for me this morning- a Huge Sephora Box ( really, it was humongous, and full of paper as a filler, what a waste!

PACKAGING: The outer packaging/box is a little excessive/gimmicky but soooo beautiful! I will definitely keep the box :) The blush is huge! Like probably twice the size I'd had in mind (should start checking dimensions and weight when I buy stuff). Of course I am not complaining about it! Each blush is as big as a regular size blush so for the price of 1 Nars blush (-$1), you get two blushes that are amazeballs! I've included an image of the Pantone duo next to other relatively big blushes so you can see how huge it is. 


As you can see the blushes are housed in a lightweight plastic palette that has a very clean look. The palette is magnetized and it closes just like the Inglot freedom palettes with the only difference being that the lid is a lot lighter than Inglot's cover. I love the look of Inglot palettes and I also like the Pantone one but I have a big problem with closing and opening magnetized palettes. I am clumsy- I drop stuff, I break stuff, I spill stuff all the time (you already know about my laptop troubles). Those magnetized lids require you to be extra careful when lifting and dropping the lid, since you are not careful you will end up digging into the product which does not look pretty afterwards and it's a waste of product. You have to kind of slide the lid open and then drop it closed. You can see the damage I've done to some of my Inglots e/s:((( .

COLOUR & PIGMENTATION: Excellent shades and great pigmentation on both blushes with Desert Flower (shimmery) being extremely pigmented. These swatches are not layered- those babies are all that jazz and some more!












think Coral will work really well on  most skin tones and because it is so richly pigmented and the colour is deep, it will probably be really awesome on deeper-skinned ladies.  I have plenty of other peachy-pink blushes but nothing really compares to this one. It is a very deep colour with strong shimmer so light-hand aplication is definitely recommended. I've swatched Desert flower next to Nars Orgasm, MAC Mighty Aphrodite, Tarte Glisten, Milani Luminoso which are all in the same family- you can see how much the Pantone offering stands out!!!  It looks almost raspberry in pictures but I can assure you it is a very deep corally pink shade. 

I don't have any other matte peachy shades to compare the Desert Flower blush to since as I mentioned earlier, I swapped them away. I swatched it against Illamasqua Tweak which is another amazingly pigmented matte blush and you can see that even though the shades are different, the intensity of colour and pigment is comparable.


As I said I got those today. I haven't worn them yet and I don't know how long they last. What I do know is that I cannot wait to test them! I am sure that there are plenty of other MU lovers interested in the Sephora plus Pantone collection. I hope this post and pictures were helpful to someone . 
I wholeheartedly approve of the Pantone blush duo- beautiful shades and great value!





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