Purple for Love

Maybelline Give Me Gold Eye Studio Quad, MAC Violent Grape Blush Ombre + Shell Beauty Powder on cheeks, GOSH Angel Balm on Lips

First off, Happy Valentine's Day and Happy Lunar New Year to everyone!! This year is the Year of the Tiger (which is what I am... which means I'll be 24 this year... XD) Hopefully everyone's been having a good 2010 so far. Actually made it out to celebrate CNY this year, dim sum with the besties, and otherwise I've been watching the Olympics. GO CANADA GO!!! This next picture has nothing to do with the post but I'm happy at how my avatar turned out so this is who you'll be 'seeing' on twitter until the Olympics are over... or I take another picture I like:

Maybelline Purple Icon Eye Studio Quad, Shu Uemura P Brown 76 Glow-on Blush, Dior Serum de Rouge 510

I love my Team Canada sweater, and my Olympic mittens :D

I digress. Yumeko did a magazine scan post a while ago that talked about lucky signs for each Zodiac colour. My colour was purple, and while I like the colour a lot I'm obviously more partial to pink... but then I checked my Pantone colour of the year at www.colorstrology.com and that was also purple so... maybe it's a sign.

I have been wearing a lot of purple lately, eyeshadow, clothing, etc, but the strangest/newest thing that purple has invaded is my blush collection :)

MAC Violent Grape Blush Ombre, Illamasqua Powder blush in SIN, Illamasqua Powder blush in THRUST

Do those blushes not look terrifying? ;)


Yumeko ignited my curiosity about purple blushes after her trip to the UK last year, after raving about Illamasqua's SIN blush. I was really excited as Sephora had just started to carry the line... and then found out they didn't ship the brand Canada. BIG FAIL, yes? Remembering later on during their F&F sale that Yumeko had really liked the brand's purple blush I asked a friend to CP it for me... only I asked for THRUST and not SIN as I couldn't remember the name. Oops. I quite like both THRUST and SIN, and I find that they provide natural looking flushes when applied sheerly with a fluffy brush... I used a dense brush for the swatches you'll see at the end of my babbling, and I NEVER wear the colours that way as I risk looking like a giant bruise. I picked up MAC's Violent Grape Blush Ombre just a few days ago (it's part of the Spring Forecast 3 collection) for the same reason I picked up SIN... curiosity, Yumeko, and a bit of knowledge this time. After all, if a dark, dark blush like SIN looked awesome, a slightly version would look good too, right?

Swatches L - R: THRUST, SIN, Violent Grape

As I said earlier, I swatched these with a dense brush (a kabuki) to get the colour differences to show up. On the cheeks, I apply with a MAC 187, I find a natural flush. SIN is the darkest and requires the lightest hand, and I often combine it with a shimmer powder (I use Dior's Poudre Shimmers 95% of the time). THRUST has a bit of a pinker undertone to it which I like on the mornings I need to look more alive, and Violent Grape is the inbetween shade... it's very matte (all of these blushes are) so I've been wearing it underneath MAC's Shell Beauty Powder. This is the cheek combo I'm wearing in the very first picture. 

I swear I had other examples but I don't label the photos I take and I apparently tweet too much to go back and find them. But I have worn all three several times! 

Do I like purple blushes? Yes, I can say that as I own three. Will I get more? I'd like to see a SLIGHTLY shimmery purple-toned blush as these are all very, very matte, but at the same time... I probably don't need another purple one. Plus these matte blushes get me to use my shimmer powders, which is good, because I find some of them not pigmented enough to be on my cheeks alone. 

I tend to wear these with gold/neutral themed eyes (I tried with pink or purple or blue eye once and... too much focus on too many things) and a pink or neutral lip, but I'm sure you could rock it out with other combinations!