One of the few beauty products I started embracing in 2020 was blush. I went from feeling indifferent about it to becoming an absolute blush snob over the course of twelve months. That said, I’ve tested approximately one million formulas, and my current obsession is LYS Beauty Higher Standard Satin Matte Cream Blush. It’s a new, cult-favorite offering that I recently got my hands on because it’s almost always sold out at Sephora, and thus, I knew I had to try it for myself.
LYS Beauty is Black-owned, which means its founder prioritized providing rich pigment for the girls (and beauty boys!) with an abundance of melanin, such as myself. I’ve used formulas in the past that were more of a “suggestion” of blush on my skin tone rather than a product that actually provided my cheeks with warmth. The brand describes the product as “a clean, high-pigment, non-greasy, satin-matte blush with a buildable, creamy formula that gives skin a natural flush,” and, spoiler alert, they live up to their description in every single way.
Admittedly, the phrasing “satin-matte” made me pause at first because… what does that mean? To find out, I applied the shade Self-Love, a rosy mauve shade, to the apples of my cheek with my favorite fluffy brush, MAKE UP FOR EVER 130 Large Powder Brush ($55), and was a little alarmed by how pigmented the shade looked on my face. A negative experience with liquid blush had me worried that the pigment would only stay in one location and not budge. But I was pleased to see that the satin-y cream formula buffed out to a beautiful soft matte finish.
One of my reservations about cream blushes is that they can sit on top of your face all day long, reminding you that you have blush on and feel sticky, but that’s not the case with LYS Beauty’s formula. I’m not worried if the wind picks up dust that it’ll get stuck to the apples of my cheeks. Likewise, the pigment stays put throughout the day, even while wearing a face mask. In other words, you don’t have to worry about your blush transferring onto your mask and disappearing off of your face (the worst).
My favorite thing about these blushes is you get a lot of product for the price point. Other blushes on the market cost $3.50-$5 per gram, while the LYS Beauty Higher Standard Satin Matte Cream Blush costs $2.46 per gram—more than 50 percent less than similar cream blushes, so you don’t have to feel bad buying a lot of them, since they’ll basically last—not to be dramatic, but forever. I barely touched my brush to the satiny cream and still got a high-impact and pigmented look that wasn’t overdone, so you know a little goes a long way.
Shop LYS Beauty Higher Standard Satin Matte Cream Blush in all six shades ahead.
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