The Rare Beauty Soft Pinch Liquid Blush has been my favourite beauty buy of the past year. If I had to define my makeup style, I would call it a baby doll – inspired look. You probably know what I mean: Doe eyes enhanced by long (sometimes false) lashes, fluffy eyebrows à la brow gel, and the most important part, rosy cheeks. It seems like the simplest routine, but I always have a heavy hand with my blushes that makes me look more like Raggedy Anne than, say, a precious porcelain doll. I’ve tried powders and cream blushes far and wide to perfect my pouty cherub look, and nothing has come close to the Rare Beauty Soft Pinch Liquid Blush.
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My experience using the Rare Beauty Soft Pinch Liquid Blush:
I’m always skeptical of the efficacy of celebrity beauty brands, but I have to admit it, Selena Gomez truly understood the assignment and passed it with flying colours when it comes to Rare Beauty – and this liquid blush in particular.
I can go on and on about how I use this product on a daily basis since its release, but you’ve probably heard hoards of beauty TikTokers rave about it already — even beauty content creator Mikayla Nogueira joined the Soft Pinch bandwagon. So, long story short: The online beauty community is just as impressed by this blush as I am. But, what makes this liquid blush so revolutionary?
When I first tried this blush, the first thing that stood out to me was its buildable finish. After all, there’s a reason why it’s called Soft Pinch. This liquid-to-powder formula is meant to mimic the subtle flush that you’d get after, say, a light jog rather than a sprint, but you can easily build up the intensity as you please. Personally, I like to put two dabs of the matte rosy-mauve shade, Grace, on the apples of my cheeks with the doe-foot applicator and blend with my fingers, then build up from there.
Whenever I notice that I put a little too much on, I simply blend out the product to tone down the intensity to my liking, and then I’m good to go.
This blush also glides on my skin like butter on toast, yet immediately dries down to a powdery finish that stays put without fading or smudging by the end of my eight-hour workday, similar to a lip stain. And just like my favourite, no-budge lip tints, this formula doesn’t feel drying at all.
On the contrary, it’s quite moisturising thanks to a blend of oils from lotus, gardenia, and white water lily flowers. According to cosmetic chemist Ginger King, they also contain antioxidants to protect your skin from free radical damage like sunlight and pollution.
“Lotus is purifying, gardenia can help with skin brightening, and white water lily provides moisturisation benefits,” she says.
Worried about not finding your perfect shade? Don’t be, because the Soft Pinch Liquid Blush comes in four matte shades (like Grace, a bright mauve, my personal favourite), and seven radiant-finish hues to mix and match as you’d like. The shades range from a dewy peach called Joy to nude-mauve Hope and everything in between to flatter a variety of skin tones and mimic your natural flush.
Like most of the Rare Beauty collection, this blush’s buildable formula is meant to enhance your natural features rather than cover them. This beauty mindset falls in line with Gomez’s mission to empower her fans and break down mental health stigmas through Rare Beauty and her nonprofit organisation, the Rare Impact Fund. In its first year alone, Gomez’s organisation was able to donate $1.2 million in grants to eight mental health and education-focused organisations. “I want to be remembered as someone who cares,” she previously told Allure. “I care a lot — and that’s what I want to do with my platform.”
It’s easy to see that Gomez put a lot of time into creating the Rare Beauty collection, especially after testing out Soft Pinch’s long-lasting liquid-to-powder formula. The shade Grace creates the rosy-pink flushed cheeks of my dreams, and I’m definitely excited to dabble with the brand’s 10 other shades.
Pssst! Don’t forget to keep an eye out for Black Friday Sephora deals in the Black Friday beauty deals event to make savings.
Rare Beauty Soft Pinch Liquid Blush
This story originally appeared on Allure.