the benefits of blusher
Knackered, pasty, complexion like a tub of custard? Join the club, says Alex Peake-Tomkinson. Here’s how to cheat that elusive healthy glow
I love blusher like only a pale woman can. And of course, the main reasons I am cravenly dependent on it is that I am one of those people that never blushes. I am often hideously embarrassed, excited and out of breath. And yes, sometimes, I am all three of these things at the same time but – for whatever reason – this never results in a flushed face. If I go for a run on a hot day, or go dancing in a woolly jumper, I’ll flip straight from palest white to a mottled aubergine, entirely bypassing the healthy glow stage. If I want to look healthy, sadly, I have to fake it.
I didn’t know this until, aged 15, mid-hockey lesson, my best friend told me I needed to start using a mysterious product called colour corrective. “Just a dot on each cheek,” she said, not unkindly. I dutifully purchased the recommended lilac coloured cream, whacking it all over my face (a dot? Don’t be silly!) for about a year, before I realised that the mauve shade it turned me made me look like I was having a hernia. Next, was a Barbara Cartland phase, when I wore layers of not especially well-blended powder blusher, and never found a shade quite pink enough. Mostly, I stuck to Dandelion by Benefit, £23.50 – a sheer powder blusher that I probably liked as much for the eau de nil box it came in as I did for the product. I also had an ill-advised fling with Mata Hari by Nars, £22.50 – a powder blusher with a healthy dose of purple in it, which means it looks lovely on darker skin but borderline ridiculous on someone like me, who has a complexion like custard.
If I’m honest, at 36, I still favour a slightly slapdash application of blusher. My sneaking fondness is for MAC’s Cremeblend blusher in Posey and Bobbi Brown’s Pot Rouge in Pale Pink. Both lovely shades and good for putting on freshly moisturised skin, when powder tends to cling to your face in beads, giving an unfortunate splotchy effect.
If I’m in a mad rush (which is usually), then it’s cream blusher applied to the apples of my cheeks and probably on the Tube. I find a carefree approach works, but try and blend the edges in, so that I don’t look completely mad. If I have the luxury of time, it’s powder blusher swept on with a fat brush 20 minutes after the rest of my make-up. This quite often means my rouge goes on after I’ve left the house, but that’s fine – I like to have something to look forward to.
My blusher for life is Deep Throat by Nars, £23 – it looks worryingly shimmery in the palette, but lovely on the face. I’m not above having my head turned, however, and fell quite hard for Charlotte Tilbury’s Cheek to Cheek First Love powder blusher, £30, which contains two shades: a lighter one to swish along the cheekbones and a brighter one to add that elusive pop of colour to the apples of your cheeks.
I don’t wear blusher every day, but it’s still the first thing I reapply in a pub loo and it’s the cosmetic that gives me the most joy. This is because, for me, it’s the most transformative. I may be whey–faced by birth, but I don’t feel it – most of the time, I feel like a woman with colour in her cheeks, and blusher is a means to match the woman in my head with what I see in the mirror.
More importantly, I love the way blusher looks on anyone, not just me. It is a signal of intent. A way of saying, I might look like I need a nap and a kale smoothie but, actually, I am READY TO GO thanks very much. There’s also something hugely optimistic about freshly applied blush: the first meeting of the day, the beginning of a night out or the bit of an evening when you decide to stay out and see what happens. And that’s why I will never give it up.