[Review] Quick roundup of luxury lip and cheek tints – YSL, Edward Bess and Giorgio Armani

[Review] MISSHA – Velvet Like Color Stick (Line Friends Edition) – Retro Movie, Key Light and Sepia Filter

Line Friends are a group of cute cartoon characters made popular from an asian messaging app. They are commonly found on merchandise, stickers and Missha have regularly used some of the characters on their beauty products.

My favourite character is Brown who is a salty looking bear who wears a constant frown. He has a sister named Choco and it is she who is used on the packaging of the Velvet Like Color Sticks. She’s just as cute and I’m not afraid to admit that I bought them mostly for the adorable packaging. I bought a blush (#Retro Movie), contour (#Sepia Filter) and a highlighter (#Key Light) so if you’d like to hear more about them please keep on reading 🙂

Product Description

from yesstyle.com

Creamy blush stick glides on effortlessly, leaving a high color payoff and velvety finish. Blended with mango seed and avocado butters to nourish skin. Cap is furnished with a three-dimensional figurine of Brown’s younger sister Choco.

Cost

$11.49 AUD from yesstyle.com *. Available in 5 shades. Prices fluctuate constantly on Yesstyle so keep an eye out for their sales.

Packaging

The color sticks are packaged in a sturdy plastic tube with its shade covering the whole container. The cutest part is that Choco is on the lid of each one. As well as being 3D, she is made of rubber and has a soft matte feel. It feels more expensive that is is and well made, very similar to Nudestix’s cheek stick packaging. Some of Nudestix products are made in Korea which is very interesting and since I have a fair bit of their collection, a review is coming very soon!

MISSHA - Velvet Like Color Stick (Line Friends Edition) - Retro Movie, Key Light and Sepia Filter
MISSHA – Velvet Like Color Stick (Line Friends Edition) – Retro Movie, Key Light and Sepia Filter

How to apply

I have used this product only on my cheeks, forehead and cheekbones but I’m sure like any multi use stick, you can also use it on your eyes and lips.

I usually swipe the product directly onto my face and blend with a small duo fibre brush. The Real Techniques Stippling brush is an excellent one but you can use any brush that can blend cream products. Fingers work too and I especially like using fingers to apply the highlighter.

For the contour stick (Sepia Filter)

I swipe it in the areas I normally bronze/contour which are the sides of my forehead, under my cheekbones and under my chin. I use the brush to blend it all in and it’s effortless.

For the blush stick (Retro Movie)

I dab the blush onto the apples of cheeks a couple of times and use the brush to blend it across my cheek. I’ve used my fingers to blend too but I prefer using a brush because it stretches the product a little further and is a breeze to blend in.

For the highlighter (Key Light)

I tap my index finger on top of the highlight and dab it onto my cheekbones. I don’t use a brush because I want a subtle sheen and doing it this way is perfect because you only need a small amount.

Performance

Just like the name implies, all three sticks dry down to a velvet finish which means that they are not sticky or need to be set down with powder. This helps with longevity and they last all day (9hrs) on me which is impressive. I do have combo skin (dry cheeks and kinda oily t-zone) so please keep that in mind. Pretty sure that they will last very well once powdered too if you have oily skin.

I didn’t expect much pigment since k-beauty isn’t well known for that but I was proven wrong. There is definitely strong colour payoff (as shown in the swatches) with all three of these sticks and layering them works well too.

MISSHA - Velvet Like Color Stick (Line Friends Edition) 
Heavy and untidy swatches (sorry!) - Left to right: Key Light, Retro Movie and Sepia Filter.
MISSHA – Velvet Like Color Stick (Line Friends Edition)
Heavy and untidy swatches (sorry!) – Left to right: Key Light, Retro Movie and Sepia Filter.

Consistency

The texture is creamy and smooth but not so emollient that it will slip and slide around your face. They glide on easily making it easy to apply directly to the face. It has never lifted my base products which is a huge plus.

Scent

It doesn’t really have a scent but if you really sniff it you can smell the mango seed butter which is quite nice. This definitely doesn’t translate once on the face.

MISSHA - Velvet Like Color Stick (Line Friends Edition)
MISSHA – Velvet Like Color Stick (Line Friends Edition)

Final thoughts

Rating: 4/5 (really liked it!)

As you can already tell by the rating, I really like these products. As well as having cute packaging the products themselves are decent. I didn’t give it 5 stars because if you blend them too much, they can blend away, in particular the blush. This can be remedied by layering more but it means you need to use more product. The contour has a nice tone to it but isn’t warm enough to use as a true bronzer so sometimes I need to apply a powder bronzer on top in order to get the bronzed effect. The highlighter is my favourite out of the three. It looks very light/white in the swatch but once blended it is so beautiful! It provides a glossy sheen which is my favourite type of effect. The shimmer isn’t noticeable once applied and little does go a long way with it. It rivals a lot of high-end highlighters that I own.

If you are looking for affordable cream cheek products I would highly recommend this line. They perform very similarly to Nudestix cheek products and have great lasting power. Or even if you just love Line Friends and cute packaging, you won’t be disappointed with these. Let me know if you’ve tried them or if you have any other Line Friends beauty recommendations.

Please note: links in this post marked with an * are affiliate links. They provide me with a small commission, if you should choose to use them for a purchase, without any extra cost to you ðŸ™‚

[Review] Tony Moly – Cheektone Single Cream Blusher – #Mood Rose & #Pinky Coral

I’ve always had a soft spot for blush. It is the one makeup product (in my opinion) that can turn you from looking half asleep and zombie-like to fresh, healthy and awake. Just a bit of colour on the cheeks can make a world of difference to how you look and feel.

I’ve always used powder blush because it’s quick and I’m lazy. Since watching (way too) many Lisa Eldridge videos I have been recently dabbling in cream and liquid blushes. She’s an MUA, Creative Director of Lancome AND still finds time to posts educational makeup videos on Youtube. She’s all about natural makeup looks and letting natural beauty shine through over caking and masking the face. So she knows her stuff.  When she said that cream and liquid blush looks more natural because it looks one with the skin, I knew I needed to grab some! I do have a few from different brands but today I will talking about the Cheektone cream blushes from Tony Moly. I picked up two colours, Pinky Coral and Mood Rose.

If you are interested in knowing more about this product and what I thought of it, please keep on reading 🙂

Cost

$6.60 each, purchased from yesstyle.com*

What is it?

It’s a cream blush which is long lasting and can also be used as cream shadow or lip colour.

Tony Moly - Cheektone Single Blusher
Tony Moly – Cheektone Single Blusher #Pinky Coral

Packaging

Tony Moly are known for their cute packaging. The packaging is what actually caught my eye with this product. It’s actually more modern and clean looking than cute, with its almost Pantone type of vibe. The case is made of plastic.

Tony Moly - Cheektone Single Blusher
Tony Moly – Cheektone Single Blusher #Mood Rose

How to use

I have only used this on my cheeks but it sounds like a multitasker, just like the RMS Lip2Cheek products (reviewed here), where it can also be used on the eyes and lips.

I’ve experimented with a couple of ways to apply this and I’ve found that using a small duo fibre brush is the best way. I dab my brush into the pan a couple of times then I dab it onto my cheeks, just to where I normally apply powder blush. The more you work the product into the skin, the more blended and natural looking it will be. Build up the level of intensity until it is right for you. I’ve found that cream blush takes a bit more time to apply than powder since you can’t just slap it on but it’s worth the effort.

Tony Moly - Cheektone Single Blusher
Tony Moly – Cheektone Single Blusher Left to Right – Mood Rose and Pinky Coral. They are heavy swatches, once blended it will look more natural

Performance

The product claims to be long lasting and I would agree. I have dry cheeks so I don’t set my cheeks, just spritz it with Fix + usually. This also helps to further melt the blush into my skin so it looks like one. It lasts on my skin for around 8 hours.

Even when I was doing swatches for this post, I found that it was still visible on my wrist after using an oil cleanser. It never stains my cheeks after double cleansing so don’t worry about that! Just keep in mind that it would be more difficult to remove compared to powder blushes.

Tony Moly - Cheektone Single Blusher
Tony Moly – Cheektone Single Blusher – it leaves a slight stain even after I used an oil cleanser.

Consistency

The texture is creamy and emollient. I thought it would be harder because they don’t appear to be shiny like the Lip2Cheek. It’s easy to pick up the blush on a brush or fingers and is easy to spread around to blend onto the face.

Scent

There is a slight scent that smells like makeup. I know it’s a poor description but its not bad or anything, just that there is a scent.

Final thoughts

Rating: 4/5 (really liked it!)

I really like the aesthetics of the packaging and best of all the product itself is great and performs well. I like both colours but if I had to pick, Mood Rose would be my recommendation. Both colours are creamy, easy to apply, doesn’t have an obnoxious smell and gives great payoff. I’ve tried a couple of korean powder blushes and they seemed to lack in the payoff department so I’m pleasantly surprised that these are so pigmented.

They are affordable and comparable to western cream blushes from brands such as Stila and Bobbi Brown. If you’ve been curious about trying cream blushes, I would highly recommend you to give these a go.

Please note: links in this post marked with an * are affiliate links. They provide me with a small commission, if you should choose to use them for a purchase, without any extra cost to you 🙂