What’s one makeup item you can’t leave the house with? I’ll admit, I need a small array of products before I consider myself ready enough to face the outside world, but one of those products I most definitely need is blush. Since I have quite fair skin, it can easily look dull and lifeless once I apply my base makeup. Blush is an instant perk-me-up for my complexion! It gives it that much needed pop of color and just completes my overall look.
I heard about Benefit’s Rockateur (Php1,600.00) late last year, it was released locally in October, and I noticed everyone seemed to be going gaga over it! I’ve always been a fan of Benefit’s boxed blushes and bronzers so I was super excited to try it out for myself. Luckily, I won this very blush from a Benefit event! Score!
Product description:
Pick up the beat with a rush of heat! This rockin’ rose gold cheek powder gives a famously provocative flush that turns heads on-stage and off. The crowd will go wild for its sexy faceted design, accented in luxe gold. For an encore, the custom angled, dimensional brush gives rich, show-stopping payoff every time.
Black and pink is one of my favorite color combinations which made the packaging irresistible to me. Plus I love the printed lace and snake skin detail! The overall look really screams ‘rock chic’.
Like with some of Benefit’s blushes, an attached mirror comes in the box. I find it too small to be of any practical use when I’m applying the blush though. But still, it’s an added convenience in case you don’t have a mirror handy and really need one.
Speaking of the brush, I like how soft its bristles are. It’s a good quality brush, for sure. I just don’t use it because it’s much too thin in dimension for me to blend seamlessly with it. You can use it to sweep the color on your cheeks, definitely, but the way I apply blush involves tapping the color onto my cheeks then blending out. I guess whether you like or dislike the brush really just depends on your choice of application!
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| Close-up |
I was a little hesitant at first when I saw how shimmery this blush was. I sometimes avoid glittery or shimmery blushes because they have the tendency to make the pores on my cheeks look even bigger. But I was happy to see that this didn’t do that for me because it’s actually not as shimmery once you apply it. Just enough to give you that ‘glow’ it promises. It helps that the glitter in it is really small too. I cringe at blushes with big chunks of glitter in them!
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| Swatch (natural light) |
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| Swatch (with flash) |
The blush has a faint scent of rose to it, so you may or may not like that depending on your sensitivity to makeup with fragrance. It’s also one of the most long-lasting blushes I’ve ever tried and can easily stay put even after 6-7 hours minimum. After that, and even with some sweating and oil thrown in there brought on by the heat and humidity, it’s fainter but still visible enough that I don’t really feel the need to retouch it. This is coming from a girl who must have color on her cheeks at all times too! Lastly, it fades evenly and gradually, meaning you don’t end up with splotchy, uneven blush by the end of the day.
WHAT I LIKE:
- Long lasting.
- Not overly shimmery with minute glitter particles. Shimmer becomes more subtle when blended out.
- Cute, chic packaging.
- Very pigmented, but also easily buildable.
- Easy to blend.
- It’s a little pricey.
- The blush is smaller, in terms of weight, compared to the other Benefit boxed powders with Rockateur coming in at 5 grams whereas the others have 7-8 grams. However, Benefit did state this on their website: "Note: Rockateur has a specialized formula that works by combining the best features of baked, powder, cream and fluid textures to give a brighter, purer color pay off creating 1.6 times the amount of pure color payoff. This results in the usage rate of Rockatuer to be an exact match to our other Box o’ Powders."