REVIEW: Missha Soft Blending Stick Blusher (Mud Brown & Sugar Glam)

It’s September! Jeez, where has the year gone? Anyway, I received the Missha Soft Defining Stick Blusher in the mail last week. (I bought them, by the way). I have been unlucky lately having lost two parcels from Qoo10; so I was really relieved these made it safely. Hopefully I can get a partial refund or some kind of resolution for the two missing parcels. 😦

Price: $14.90 on Qoo10 (price ranges from seller to seller), unsure how much it retails in Korea or locally.

Packaging: Item comes boxed, and are twist ups. The product measures about 2.5 inches in height and about 0.5 inch in diameter. The tubes have the shade name printed on the front, and overall feel matte to the touch. For the price, it weighs and feels more luxe.

It’s also dual ended. One side is the pigment, the other is a mini flat blending brush.”

Scent: There’s no sugar coating it, the scent is unpleasant. How should I describe it.. it like old floral powder mixed with an odd plasticky fishy smell. No amount of airing can get rid of it. Really, if you buy this don’t take a whiff if you can help it.

The photo above shows how much product you get per tube. (about 1.5cm?) I got the shades Sugar Glam and Mud Brown, since I was looking for a highlighter and contour shade.

There are other colours in the range, shown above. I’d love to try out Milk Pink and Rose Coral, but didn’t want to risk losing more parcels in my recent spate of bad luck. Then again, I wanted to see how the formula and wear would be, before investing in the other colours.

Here’s a close up of the brush that comes with every blending stick. The bristles are a little on the stiff side, but not till the point of being scratchy. They are non retractable but detachable, just pop the brush off and you’re good to wash them. Maybe the bristles will be softer after washing, I’ve not tried yet.

Alright, with that let’s get down to business with swatches and my overall experience.

Mud Brown: The colour is a chocolaty brown, and suits my light to medium complexion. There’s no shimmer, and application went on smoothly without tugging. It’s almost like butter, hopefully the product doesn’t sweat or go gooey in our climate. The nearest generic product texture I can relate to would be lipstick or lipbalm.

When applied onto the face, I can faintly smell the weird unpleasant scent. Thankfully it goes away in a couple of minutes. In the swatch above, the top is about 3 layers of product to portray the colour intensity, the bottom is 2 layers blended out. The shade is definitely buildable, but there is a slight bit of wetness during initial application. After blending out this does not make my face look “over-contoured” – if you get what I mean. The wear time was about 4 hours before fading.

Mud Brown is a little on the light side in my honest opinion. That makes me wonder how Pecan Brown performs, and if it works for light skin tones.

Sugar Glam: I thought this might be a cheaper alternative to Benefit’s Watts Up. I don’t own the full sized one, but I do have the deluxe mini and I love it. Likewise for Mud Brown, Sugar Glam glided on smoothly and had the same wetness. Blending wasn’t an issue. The product provided a pearlized finish, and gives a soft diffused  glow where the light hits. The colour is a cool champagne beige and should suit most skin tones. Likewise with Mud Brown, this lasted about 4 hours before fading.

My rating: 4/5 (Not bad.. but oh man, that smell)

Overall I’d say this product is alright for daily use based on the price and the volume. I didn’t suffer any breakouts during the week when I wore it daily to work. What I like is the ease of usage, and the thoughtfulness of Missha to include the little brush, making this blending stick travel friendly.

What I would recommend is for them to either work on the scent, or just make it unscented. I can’t help but cringe a little after initial application and the fishy oily smell wafts around. Coverage is decent, the product gives a natural look when blended out and doesn’t make my face look orange/glitterball.

I’m not sure if I will repurchase these any time soon, but I will still use them since there are no major issues.

Have you tried the other shades, or are you intending to get this? I hope my review was helpful 🙂

Cheerio,

• cheap
• contour
• cream blush
• good
• highlighter
• korean
• missha
• mud brown
• qoo10
• sugar glam