Urban Decay Afterglow 8 hour blusher

Before I even begin to talk about the blushers, can we just take a second to admire the absolute beauty that is the packaging and colours of the new Urban Decay Afterglow 8 hour blusher. I mean look at them! They are absolute beauties.

 

For the past few weeks I have trailed 3 colours from the new Afterglow 8 hour blushers, that were recently released as part of the Urban Decay summer collection. Urban Decay have really gone all out when it comes to colour, and while there is a colour to suit most, many of these shades are not for either the light-hearted or the heavy-handed.

The After Glow 8 hour blusher collection has 12 shades with everything from light peaches to vibrant purples and everything in between. There is a selection of satin matte shades and some shimmery shades. These blushers pack some serious pigmentation and a light hand is needed on application. Unless you want to look like Aunt Sally that is.

Both Bittersweet and Crush have a satin matte finished, and while they look extremely bright in the pan , when applied with a light hand they blend beautifully into the skin to give a flush of colour. While Bittersweet isn’t a colour that I would use everyday, if you’re into bright cheeks, or you are of a darker skin tone to me, then this will look beautiful on you. I think I may find myself using it as more of an eyeshadow then blusher. However, the colour Crush was surprisingly right up my street. I thought that it was going to be über pink on the cheeks, but when you are very light with applying colour to your brush it was very wearable as a daytime blusher! Both colours can give a semi sheer wash of colour or a full on opaque look if that is what you’re after.

The colour Kinky is described as a light peach colour with a hint of shimmer. Personally I found that this colour was far harder to work with then the two brighter colours. I found this shade a lot harder to work with, as it didn’t blend as easily as the other two and ended up looking very chalky on my skin. Not only that, when I use a blusher with shimmer in it, I personally expect the shimmer to give my cheeks a bit of a glow. Sadly this wasn’t the case with Kinky. Instead I found that the shimmer sat on the surface of the skin. I tried apply it with a number of brushes, but I always got the same outcome. I thought that this colour would be very similar to Mac Margin, but it really just sat on my cheeks doing a whole load of nothing.

I found the staying power of these blushers very impressive. Both the satin matte blushers and the shimmer blushers, lasted very well throughout the day and  I still had a wash of colour at the end of the day. There was little or no wear down of colour, which considering my skin is acting up lately, is nothing short of a brilliant.

One downside to all the blushers is fall out. Due to the softness of each blusher, there is a little bit of fallout when you swirl your brush in the pan. I don’t find this to be a problem as such, but I know that it will irritate some people.

Over all I can wholeheartedly recommend the satin matte blushers, but the shimmery blushers are to be avoided. They are just too chalky and hard to work with.

The Afterglow 8 hour blushers are available from Debenhams and House of Fraser for €28 each.