SMILE! With Guerlain Spring 2016

I was on a low-buy at the start of this year, and I did pretty good!  Throughout Jan-Feb I kept seeing Guerlain’s Spring 2016 makeup items pop up on my Instagram feed, but I wasn’t sure how I really felt about them so I procrastinated.  In the end, I decided the only way to find out was to get them for myself!  😀

I like it when makeup brands step out of their comfort zones once in a while and give us something quirky and unusual.  Guerlain has often tempted collectors with their limited edition releases, such as last Spring’s Angelic Radiance Meteorites Perles de Blush.  This season, Guerlain wanted to remind us to have fun, and has slipped happy messages into a couple of makeup items!

Guerlain Rose aux Joues Blush Duo is the first time I’ve seen a shiny metallic red casing from Guerlain!  Housed inside, are 2 shades of blushes in a split pan.  Engraved on the darker shade is the reminder to SMILE!  And of course, that pink bristled brush is adorable.

When I first saw this blush duo, I did not like it at all.  Of all the fonts in the world, why did they choose Helvetica??  And in my mind, this is the least cheery font to use.  But of course, I cannot imagine Comic Sans appearing on a Guerlain product either.  So here we are, sexy siren red exterior, and pacman-esque retro interior.

But since I loved the recently reformulated Rose aux Joues blushes [reviewed here], I thought it’d be nice to add 2 more shades to my collection.  However, it soon became apparent to me that Guerlain had reverted to their older formula for this limited edition duo!  It is lacking in pigmentation, and no matter how vigorously I swirl my densest cheek brush in the pan, I simply can not pick up enough colour for it to show up on my cheeks!  Even after multiple rounds of application, all I can achieve is the barest flush.  It is nice for those who are particularly heavy-handed, and are only out to achieve that soft, natural hint of colour.

Here is a heavy swatch for you:

Both shades have a satin finish, the right is a lighter cool-toned pink with a bit of a sheen to it, whilst the left is a medium warm-toned coral pink.  The way I wear these is to first swirl my brush in the pan, focusing more on the darker pink, and then sweep it across my cheek bones.  Thereafter, I pick up the lighter pink and apply it on the apples and/or top of my cheek bones near the corner of my eyes as a highlighter.

Along with the blush duo, Guerlain has also released 2 new shades of KissKiss Lipsticks, and I picked up #371 Darling Baby as it seemed a better match for the blush duo.  As you can see from the combined swatches above, Darling Baby is a medium warm-toned salmon-pink with some sparse sprinkling of pink shimmers.

When Guerlain first introduced these KissKiss lipsticks [reviewed here], they were the first new crop of semi-sheer, lip-loving creamy formulas in the market and I thought they were the best things since sliced bread.  Since then we had this, this, and this, just to name a few; and now I’m not sure I still feel the same way about the KissKiss.  In particular, the shimmers in Darling Baby leave my lips feeling gritty and in need of some therapy at the end of the day.  On the other hand, I love the colour, and it works with just about anything I wear.

I find it rather difficult to get the blush duo to show up properly on photos, so I had to really lay it on thick for this photo.  Darling baby on lips, and Tom Ford Lilac Dream on my lids (reviewing coming soon!).

Despite my reservations about the formulas, I think both Guerlain Rose aux Joues Blush Duo and KissKiss Lipstick in Darling Baby are perfect spring shades.  If easy to wear, hard to overdo, natural beauty looks are your cup of tea, be sure to check these out!