TheBalm Instain Blush

About 2 months ago, TheBalm did a 50% off sale to celebrate their new website. They also launched their new Instain Blush on the same day (April 1) and I picked one up called Swiss Dot which is a gorgeous peach colour. There are 6 Instain blushes in total and I was so tempted to get them all but I have too many blushes as it is :P

TheBalm Instain Blush

It's packaged similarly to their other blushes like FratBoy. It opens up with a mirror inside and has an outer box made of cardboard. I love that if I dropped this blush, it would be less likely to shatter than a blush in a plastic palette or casing.

Swiss Dot in the sun.

Swiss Dot indoors

It actually looks quite scary in the pan as it's definitely a strong peach that leans heavily towards orange. The consistency is quite like a powder blush and it's super pigmented so people with fair skin would need to use a really light hand when applying this.

If you look at the swatches below, you can see that it's really easy to overdo it. I did 2 swipes on my arm with a finger and it was already too much. I wiped the blush off with a wet wipe after 5 minutes and it stained so much that I couldn't wipe it off anymore.

Swatches in sunlight
Top left: 2 swipes, Top right: blended out
Bottom swatches: stain after 5 minutes

Swatches indoors
Top left: 2 swipes, Top right: blended out
Bottom: stain after 5 minutes

The best part of this blush is that it stains really well so that you really don't need to reapply blush during the day. However, you need to work fast as if you make a mistake, it would be really hard to correct it. To be honest... I don't really reach for it that often as I'm scared that I'll make myself look like a clown :P But.. it's still a gorgeous colour that's not so common that you would already have dupes of it in your makeup collection. Let me know if there are similar colours out there though!

This blush retails for $22 on the US site (www.thebalm.com) but I picked it up for only $11 :) I don't think this is available in Australia/David Jones yet but if any Aussies want to get it, TheBalm does do international shipping :) The shipping fee is expensive... but it would be worth it if you split the shipping costs with a friend.