I have a confession to make: I’m a bit cheek makeup phobic. Finding a blush colour that goes with my pale olive skintone has been quite a task, and honestly one that I gave up on a while ago. I haven’t worn anything else than highlighter on my cheeks on a regular basis in a very, very long time. That is, until recently. When I got this beautiful new Benefit Cheekleaders blush, bronze & highlight palette in the mail, it quickly sparked my desire to wear pretty pink shades on my cheeks again. Benefit is probably my favourite makeup brand at the moment as their products are always super wearable and easy to use, so this seems like a great place to re-start my cheek makeup journey. Before we take a closer look at it, I just wanted to give a big thank you to Benefit for gifting me this palette. Alright, let’s see how it preforms!
As always with Benefit products, the palette comes in super cute packaging. This is the Cheekleaders Pink Squad version with various shades of pink blush and highlight. There’s also a Bronze Squad version, with more bronzy, golden colours. The lid has a mirror and a little pocket that holds a card with two suggestions on how to wear the colours. There’s a little blush brush in the palette as well, which is really nice and soft. This one came with my name engraved in it, how nice is that? I absolutely love that little detail :)
The mini-tutorial on the card in the pocket behind the mirror.
And here we have the products themselves! Four blushes, a bronzer and a highlight. Although I’m guessing Dallas is maybe meant as a blush for darker skin tones, because that would definitely be more of a bronzer on me as well. The beautiful golden center on GALifornia is an overspray, which I’m always a bit sad about. The blush itself is matte. Tickle is a new product, exclusive to this palette.
GALifornia, Tickle, Hoola, Dandelion, Dallas
What a pretty bunch! The colours are really nice and pigmented, but not so wild that I’d be afraid to wear them. I feel like these’ll be really nicely buildable.
Here I’m wearing Hoola as bronzer, Dandelion as blush and Tickle as highlight.
Here I’m wearing Dallas as bronzer, Galifornia as blush and Tickle as highlight.
On the skin, Dallas is definitely blushier than Hoola and I can see why one is marketed as a blush and the other as a bronzer. Wouldn’t want to wear Dallas all over the face, haha! Both are very pretty though and on the cheeks, Dallas works really nicely just under the cheekbones.
Both GALifornia and Dandelion are really pretty, but Dandelion has just a touch of a cooler undertone which makes it a bit more flattering on my skin. I have a feeling GALifornia will be great when I have a tan in summer.
Tickle is a tad too dark for me to purely be a highlighter. When you look at my bottom two pictures you can see pretty clearly it looks like I applied my blush too high up. That’s Tickle right there, doing its pink pigmented thing. The shine is gorgeous though, as is the colour, so I think it would be better suited for me as a blush topper.
All colours in this palette should be usable for many different cooler toned skin colours, which I love. I can definitely put them all to good use if I get a bit creative with the application. The colours are all gorgeous and I love that I can apply them subtly or in a more outspoken way, whichever I choose that day. Oh, and did I mention the palette smells amazing? It has a very pleasant, feminine, powdery scent which is made up of the scents of all the individual products. Try hovering your nose across the palette, it’s quite a fun experience :)
Although it’s on the pricier side, this palette is really good value for money. You get five products for €60, which would be €170 if bought individually. I really like that you get an exclusive colour too, in Tickle.
If you’re looking for a one stop shop for your cheeks, definitely give the Benefit Cheekleaders palette in Pink Squad a look in the store.
