GOSH Cosmetics Giant Blush Sticks Review & Swatches!*

All of my posts lately have been about Spring and Summer beauty and today's post is no exception. The Spring and Summer is when I spend the majority of my time changing up my beauty routine to include new products. One of those products is cream blush. In the past, I've had a love-hate relationship with cream blushes simply because I didn't have the right foundation routine to rock with them. Cream blushes always stay on my cheeks long after my foundation and other products have broken down and faded. At the end of the day, this just made me look weird and silly. Now that I have my flawless face base under control I feel like it's time to experiment with cream blushes once again.

Today I'm going to be chatting about the GOSH Cosmetics Giant Blush Sticks*. I was happily sent these products to feature here on Embrace & Ignite and I'm really happy about it because they are a product I've enjoyed. Before I get too in-depth into the review I want to mention that these products are exclusively available at Shoppers Drug Mart here in Canada, in other countries overseas I know that GOSH products are carried in stores like Superdrug. Other than that I recommend checking out their website or doing a Google search for more availability in your country/area.

While GOSH Cosmetics is not a drugstore brand it also is not a high-end brand in my opinion. The price points of many of their products sit right in between drugstore and Sephora prices. In particular, these Giant Blush Sticks retail for $18 and contain 5.5 grams of product but trust me you don't need a lot. Each stick comes in a beautiful black twist my chubby stick similar to the Clinique versions. They are also clearly labeled on each end as to what color is inside the package. For a larger collection like mine, this is the perfect asset to this product. I can easily dig inside my makeup collection and find the exact shade I'm looking for without having to open every single container.

As for the shades, GOSH currently has three shades available in Shy, Passion, and Pink Parfait. You can see the shades more clearly in the swatches below but Shy is a medium dusty nude shade, Passion is a bright fire coral shade and Pink Parfait is a bright cool toned barbie pink shade. Each shade is really beautiful when swatched but I want to let you know that depending on how you apply these products the colors are going to come out very different. For instance, applying a lighter more sheer layer of the color is going to give you a wash and is going to look different then if you apply a heavy layer of the product. Make sense? So while you are getting three different shades you can actually create your own unique shades based on how you apply them. Another cool trick is that you can actually mix the shades together to create a completely unique shade.

Before we move onto talking about the product itself, I want to talk more about my application method. I don't apply these products in a traditional manner. The idea of taking the product and smearing it onto my cheek just freaks me out. So I like to place some product on the back of my hand and then use a Real Techniques Stippling Brush and apply a thin sheer layer of the product. Then based on how much color I've got and want, I go in again and apply a second layer. I repeat this process two - three times to make sure I have the intensity I want. I then take a clean Real Techniques Stippling Brush and blend the edges of the product into my skin and down into my contour color. When working with cream blush I want to make the product look as natural as possible because I find that's its super easy to have the product come off clown like if you aren't careful.

One of the really big perks to this product is how well they apply. Because they are a more or a wet cream formula they are really easy to transfer onto the cheeks and blend into the skin. I also feel like because of this formula that it doesn't disturb the foundation underneath the product. In saying that, I've used these products both over a powdered face and a non-powdered face and I highly recommend that you DON'T apply powder to the area where you are going to apply these. When I applied these over powder I felt like the products underneath the blush balled up and got really cakey. The product also only lasted about 5 - 6 hours over top of the powder. The next few days I tried it without the powder and had a noticeable improvement. The products blended into the skin better and sat on the skin better. They also lasted me 8 - 10 hours of wear. I also want to mention that neither time when using these products did I set them with any kind of powder either.

At this point, I've used all of the shades I was sent and all of them perform equally as well and really do look beautiful, healthy and radiant on the skin. I've never been a huge cream blush person and I'm really sad that I'm just discovering these wonderful products now because I really think I would have enjoyed them long before. I'm extremely happy that I was able to test out such a wonderful product and I highly recommend heading down to your local Shoppers Drug Mart or store that carries these products and even just giving them a swatch. I know upon first swatch you are going to fall in love with these products as well.

I'm now even more excited to continue to play wth more Spring and Summer beauty products and combine them with these beautiful blushes. I also can't wait to purchase some more cream blushes from other brands and product lines to see how they compare to these amazing GOSH Cosmetics ones! I'm also excited to explore the GOSH Cosmetics brand more in-depth. I've already been hunting in Shoppers Drug Mart and looking and feeling the beautiful display of products and I've even already started to create a wishlist!

Have you tried anything from Gosh Cosmetics?
Do you wear cream blush? Why or why not?


*** Products were sent to me for consideration and review!