Cover Girl Instant Cheekbones Contouring Blush…

Note: There’s only a few hours left before the Beetrice’s Reviews Blogoversary Giveaway closes. If you haven’t entered yet, do so quick before the deadline tomorrow night! :)

I was passed this blush to try sometime back, and after trying it a couple of times, it got buried under as other products caught my eye. However, when I was looking for a bit of a contouring boost recently, this came to mind, and I decided to do a full review on it. For the sake of brevity, I’m just going to refer to this as the CG Contouring Blush k?

Description:
Cover Girl Instant Cheekbones Contouring Blush lets you create cheekbones you wish you had been born with, instantly and easily. Each compact contains three expertly coordinated shades that add natural-looking contour – so you can look like you were born with great cheekbones anytime! The formula is lightweight, blendable and dermatologically-tested.

The Verdict:
The shade I got was #210 – Peach Perfection. It wouldn’t have been a colour I would normally pick out for myself, but I decided to give it a try anyway. I’ve discovered that as I can carry off both warm and cool tone colours as long as it isn’t too far in either direction. Of course, I have my personal favourites, but who doesn’t?

Texture-wise, this blush is quite fine and fairly pigmented. A light dusting is enough to give you some colour, which you can then build on as you like for more emphasis. I’d suggest you don’t go overboard on this though, since the idea is just to give you an illusion of having cheekbones, not actually look like you’ve drawn them on. (who remembers Mariah Carey’s ‘painted' “abs” at an awards show? Definitely.Not.Nice.)

One thing that I notice about the blush when I opened it was the scent. I have only ever smelt it on Cover Girl products (when they used to bring it into Malaysia some years back – it’s been since withdrawn from the local market) and this blush was no different. I liken it to a very talc-like scent, which can be a bit off-putting to some. Thankfully you only need a little bit of powder to do the job so the scent isn’t very noticeable once you have the blush on, but the Cover Girl people should really do something about it as the scent’s been there for as long as I can remember.

CG Contouring Blush is available in 4 shades – Peach Perfection, Refined Rose, Purely Plum and Sophisticated Sable. It’s not entirely clear from the image above, but the Peach and Rose are more suited for warm tones, while the Plum and Sable suit cool tones better. And do use a decent blush brush to apply it – I’ve long found that the brushes that come with these blush compacts are usually quite hopeless, and the CG one is no better. If anything it just feels like flimsy plastic, so I usually just use my own brush.

To make it easier to use the contouring blush, CG has come up with a simple step-by-step tutorial on how to use the blush, which I’ve replicated below:

TIP: If you’re like me and have some trouble finding that almost non-existent “hollow space” below the cheekbone (If I didn’t have problems finding it, I wouldn’t need the contouring blush in the first place right?), just suck in your cheeks – see the hollowed-out spaces? There you go!

Also, to find your cheekbones (or to make them look even more defined with or without makeup) smiling with your teeth showing (no simpering half-smiles here!) instantly pushes out your cheekbones for easy definition.

Ingredient list

I found that the shimmery texture of the powder did help to accentuate my cheekbones, albeit quite subtly while giving a nice flush to my cheeks without looking clown-like. However, as far as staying power goes this didn’t last very long – the look held for all of a couple of hours before it totally faded to oblivion. Good for a short trip out, but don’t hope for it to last for an evening event which is quite a pity, since it did look quite pretty. It’s also quite affordable, but I still can’t get past that talc-like smell and the lack of staying power…if these areas were addressed, I’d probably be lemming it…


Cover Girl Instant Cheekbones Contouring Blush retails at approximately USD5 or its currency equivalent and is available at Cover Girl counters in Australia and US. (not sure if it’s available anywhere else though)


Rating: 3 / 5
Value: $$