Sephora Collection Soft Matte Perfection Blush Duos in 01 Sweet Pea, o2 Peach Blossom, and 03 English Rose
These are the blushes from the Sephora Collection that I consider top tier. It’s unfortunate that they seem to be either discontinuing them or having difficulty with sourcing and keeping them in stock. All of the lighter shades disappear off the website for months at a time before returning, and then a different shade disappears in its place, so I don’t know how long these will continue to be around. And when I say disappear, I don’t mean listed as “out of stock.” Currently, Sweet Pea is the only one of the three I own that’s on the website, and that shade had been missing for six months prior. A few months ago, it was only English Rose of the three, and a few months before that it was only Peach Blossom. October 2022 was the last time I saw all six blushes on the website at the same time.
In addition to supply issues, it might also be the case that since so many brands are switching to being talc-free, these might get reformulated in the future.
It’s very unusual for me to wear the lightest shades in a blush range (only Mesauda comes to mind), but that’s because these are highly pigmented blushes! They also start at about a medium depth, which is the main reason these colors don’t look ashy on my cheeks.
I prefer using these with my natural hair brushes with light to medium packed bristles. That ensures that the blushes don’t look too intense on my cheeks between the pigment level and colorful right halves of the compacts, but because they also contain slightly muted colors in the left halves, I don’t need to use the sheerest or airiest of brushes to apply them with either.
In this gallery of three photos, I’m wearing the blushes in the mixtures I normally would, though I didn’t have a choice with Sweet Pea because I was wearing the re-pressed/fixed version. The photo of English Rose is almost primarily the Rose color in the compact.
In the upcoming four photos below, Sweet Pea is worn the way I would normally combine the shades. I also demonstrate the two different Peach Blossom looks, plus how English Rose looks if I use more beige to soften the rose.
Even though the duo blushes are matte, they don’t look powdery or flat. Sephora nailed the description of these having, “a creamy, buildable texture and a soft matte finish.” I love the fact that I get two different shades I can wear separately, or I can customize the blush by using a mix of both. For instance, with Peach Blossom, I can easily wear one or the other. With English Rose, I mainly use the pink portion, but I add a little of the beige half to keep it looking more muted, soft, natural, and diffused.
These blend superbly and are long-lasting on the cheeks, in addition to being quite affordable for a product at Sephora. These are in my top favorite matte powder blush formulas and I can’t recommend them enough. My first one, Sweet Pea, arrived broken and even though I did a horrible job pressing it back (and both shades turned into one), it looked so pretty on my skin that I bought the other two shades. And then, when I saw Sweet Pea finally available on the website again, I purchased it so I could have the dual color option and have the blush look in better condition. I would not have done that if it wasn’t so good!
Sephora often puts their own collection on sale for 30% off, so that would be an even better time to try them out if you’re interested. I would just be careful to check the ingredients because if it’s talc-free, that means it’s not the same formula and I can’t guarantee the performance will be the same.
Sephora Collection Colorful Blushes in 05 Sweet on You, 16 Heated, 23 Passionate, 27 Charmed, and 29 Fascinated
These were initially released first across Europe, so I was able to get three of these while I was in Germany. They only had about five available to choose from, so those first ones weren’t my first choice in shades, but I was still interested in them. I wasn’t impressed by how they looked, but I thought it might be the case of the colors making me feel that way, so I purchased two more on sale when I returned home. That didn’t end up changing anything. In fact, it just served to solidify my confusion.
The only blush of the five that’s labeled matte is Sweet on You (which I could swear sometimes I find a little shimmer in it too and it has a visible sheen on my cheeks). The other four are all listed as shimmers, but Heated is the only one that’s easily identifiable as shimmery. Charmed and Fascinated have barely visible specks in the pan, but Passionate is like playing Where’s Waldo to find any shimmer. I’ve seen maybe one or two glimmer particles as I’ve gotten past the topmost layer of the blush. There’s probably like 1% of it in the whole thing. What Sephora’s photos show versus what it looks like in the pan in person are so very different.
I wonder if others who own Passionate, Charmed, and Fascinated have much less sparkle in theirs too, or if this is evidence that the batches weren’t mixed properly and everyone is getting various shimmer levels of their shimmer blushes. It can’t be a situation of location since I ordered some from Germany and some from the US. I would have thought they were mislabeled as shimmers if the brand photos didn’t show they were clearly supposed to contain the same amount of shimmer in them as Heated. What a strange circumstance.
These blushes appear decent on camera, but in person, they look so dry unless I properly prep my skin. I was confused because they feel like the same softness to the touch as the Sephora blush duos I love so much, but they don’t look that great on my skin if I’m using a natural or matte leaning foundation. The blushes look much better after giving them enough time to settle into my foundation, and especially if I’m wearing thorn oil as primer.
The brand reformulated and/or repackaged the Sephora Collection Colorful Blushes line at least twice, so these new ones I own are the third version to my knowledge. My original one from 2014 had less pigment, but I recall it looking and feeling better than these on my skin.
It has long since been decluttered, so I can’t double-check. The only reason I have a picture of it (Orange Pop) is because it was reviewed on this blog in one of my oldest posts. I didn’t purchase any of the second line of repackaged and/or reformulated blushes.
When I checked the ingredients, I was shocked to see Kaolin listed second, since I’m used to seeing it much lower down on face powder ingredient lists. This could be why the blush looks drying on my already dry skin. It could also explain why I prefer the duos over these because their formulas are so different.
For those with oily or combination skin, these blushes may give a totally different experience.
In the demonstration photos, I paired the Nars Light Reflecting Advanced Skincare Foundation in Caracas (natural finish) with Rituel de Fille Thorn Oil.
These are long lasting with medium-to high levels of pigment and they blend in an adequate amount of time. My skin type issues aside, these blushes are fine. To me, they’re the worst of the Sephora ones I’ve tried and among the lower ranked of my blush collection, but I wouldn’t go as far as to call them bad. Most brands don’t make “bad” blushes in these modern times. Plus, I know that if I make my skin a bit dewier, the blushes will look pretty on my cheeks. It’s an easy remedy. That being said, I still can’t recommend them. If I had a smaller blush collection, I would probably keep them. However, I’m pretty sure I will declutter them by the end of this year.
Sephora Collection Spice Market Contour Powder & Blush Palette
In the swatches on the right side above, I showed what these look like with the color White Gold on top of them because Sephora describes that as a “transformer shade.” I interpreted that to mean they’d become more glowy, and technically it makes them more reflective, but it mostly makes them lighter. This could be helpful to those with lighter skin tones in being able to wear them, or for someone who just wants to tone down the vibrancy. However, I don’t recommend anyone apply White Gold on top of Mahogany. The other four could look like they formed brand new shades because these shimmer blushes need some kind of emollience to actually combine, which is why they work well together. When paired with a matte, they just lay on top instead of actually mixing. That’s why when I use Mahogany as bronzer, if I put one of the other blushes on my cheeks, the spot where the blush touches the bronzer basically covers it up instead of blending together properly.
The transforming aspect, plus having a contour, blush, and highlighter to match my skintone were the reasons I bought this palette. However, I don’t like the tone of Orange Shimmer on me when used by itself and the transformed version is too light. Copper Shimmer has a similar effect as Nars Orgasm blush with the difficulty seeing the pink color because of the gold reflecting so brightly that it looks like I’m just wearing highlighter all over my cheeks. It’s at least more flattering on me than Orgasm, but less so than Orgasm X. White Gold is too intense for my taste as a highlighter, but Golden Bronze is perfect. So, I’m just left with one usable contour/bronzer in Mahogany, one usable highlighter in Golden Bronze, and one pretty blush in Burgundy. Burgundy is a little deep, and I built it up in the photos, but it looks much better on me if I apply it in a lighter layer. Also, I do like how Burgundy and Copper Shimmer look mixed together, as well as Burgundy and Orange Shimmer. So, technically, the other blushes can still have some use.
I ended up with less choices and combinations with the face palette than I anticipated, but 4 out of 6 usable products isn’t so bad (especially if I get creative with the blush mixtures). The reason I don’t reach for this very much is because, once again, I’m not as pleased with the formula. The shimmers take longer than I feel they should to get an even application across the cheeks, so trying to combine them into one seamless color takes extra effort. The outcome is pretty, though the shimmer type is a little more metallic than I’d prefer with Copper Shimmer. The metallic nature isn’t as intense in Orange Shimmer if applied sheerly, and the shimmer in Burgundy doesn’t have a strong reflect. However, the high reflect is inescapable with White Gold and Copper Shimmer.
Mahogany as a matte is also not as smooth as I want for a bronzer or contour powder that needs to be very blendable in order to be believable as naturally shaping my face. It’s possible that powdering my foundation first before applying Mahogany could make it blend better, but I rarely powder my whole face because of my skin type. Overall, these powders don’t spread as easily, which keeps them from ranking as high. However, I find this palette more useful and like it more than the Sephora Collection Colorful Blushes because of their finishes. They’re a little more work, but I like the effect in the end. I’m keeping it at least until it’s time to move.
The only Sephora product that I recommend nearly as much as the blush duos is the Microsmooth Multi-Tasking Baked Face Palette. I reviewed the one in Captivate here before, so I don’t need to go too much in detail, but it’s a fantastic formula at an awesome price. I much prefer the bronzer in that palette over Mahogany in the Spice Market palette. The difference in quality is pretty significant as well.
Now that I know not all Sephora Collection blushes are created equal, I won’t be giving the blanket statement anymore that “Sephora blushes are great.” However, I very excitedly advocate for their baked products and the blush duos in their current formulas.
That’s all for today. Thank you for reading!
-Lili ❤
DISCLOSURE: I purchased all these products myself. All links in this post are normal non-affiliated links.
