And lastly, the most pigmented and boldest blush that I have - the Ellana Lip & Cheek Cream Color in Strawberry Red. Like I said in my last post, I'm careful in choosing colors and most of the time choose something safe but one day while on youtube, the vloggers that I subscribed to rave about a certain blush and Estee of essiebutton wear it on one of her videos and showed the Nars Orgasm and I was like WHAT!!!! that is so bright and pigmented but it looks so natural on her. And that's when it hits me that something loud or bold or pigmented can be naturally beautiful when applied properly and this just proves how little knowledge I have when it comes to make-up. Anyway, I looked for an alternative-a bit similar to Orgasm and found Strawberry Red of Ellana.
Ellana Icon Lip & Cheek Cream Color in Strawberry Red
"Mini-pots of a sheer wash of long-lasting luminous color, creamy & easily blendable. To use as blush, dot on the apples of your cheeks and blend. To use as lip color, dot on the middle of the lips and blend towards the edges. Highly pigmented, a little goes a long way."
It looks dark pink in the picture but in person it really looks like the strawberry color in paints (almost like what is on this link). It looks matte but when I apply it on my skin, it actually has a bit of shimmer on it. It is creamy and blendable but I wouldn't use a brush in applying this if I we're you because it will just get stuck on the bristles. It's more proper to use clean fingers in blending it and a dot really goes a long way (I made a mistake of swiping my fingers twice on the pan and slapped it on my cheek and it's like those little girls who buy the very red chewing gums and swipe them on their lips and cheeks for color hehehe memories, I use to do it when I was a kid). Looking at the swatches below, the bottom part is just a light swipe from the pan showing how pigmented it really is and the upper one is just the blended leftover from my finger.
I haven't tried this on my lips and I do not have the intention to wear it on my lips, the shimmer forbids me to do so hahaha, silly but it's the only reason I can think of. Anyway, I bought it with the pure intention of using it as a blusher.
I love the illustration of Soleil Ignacio in the packaging and that it has a magnet (I keep on opening and closing it for fun, is that crazy?) although the cuts and pasting of the paper and the interior needs a little improvement (I'm very careful not to stain the white interior of the packaging). A little bit of shimmer is nice but I hope Ellana has a matte-as-in-no-shimmer-at-all version of this one because I really like how creamy and pigmented it is and the color just suits my skintone really well and it last the whole day on my cheeks with minimal fading (and I thank my dry skin for that, dry skin and cream blush go hand in hand) but there are days that I'm just simply not into shimmery things.
If you wanted to meet the rest of my blushers then you can check out my A Touch of Blush post and might as well look into my ELF Color Stick and Studio Blush and Nature Republic Shine Blossom Rose Blusher entries (just click on the names and it will directly lead you to the post). Thanks!
