Urban Decay X Gwen Stefani Blush Palette Review + Swatches!

Gwen Stefani's collaboration with Urban Decay was easily the most anticipated makeup collection of last year, with her eyeshadow palette becoming an instant sellout. The rest of her collection finally made its way to Irish shores in mid-January, and when I saw the press releases I wasn't overly in love with the blush palette. I thought it looked nice, but nothing I majorly needed in my collection.

After watching numerous videos and going to the Urban Decay counter to play with the palette, I soon realised that I in fact did need this palette in my collection! The formulation of the powders is absolutely incredible, they're so soft and buttery to touch, and they blend onto the skin seamlessly.

You get two pink blushes, two golden-highlights and then two bronze shades. The colour that appealed to me the most is Easy, which is the beautiful warm pink in the middle of the top row. It's like a more mauve version of NARS' Orgasm blush, but it doesn't have the gold flicks throughout that Orgasm has. I think this is an nice alternative if you don't like an incredibly glowy blush, you just like a little bit of a shimmer. It's lovely because it lifts the cheekbones up and gives a healthy sheen to the cheeks.

Although I've been really enjoying Easy, the shade that has stolen the show for me is without a doubt Angel. It's the highlighter to the right of Easy, and it's the absolute perfect highlighter. I've been using it every single day, I can't get enough of it. I feel like it's somewhere in between MAC's Soft And Gentle and The Balm's Mary Lou Manizer, it's a golden-champagne shade that really packs a punch when it comes to a good intense highlight. You can wear it softly by just patting a little bit on the tops of the cheeks, but I love a really intense highlight so I apply it to my fan brush then spritz the brush with MAC's Fix+ spray to give a wet-sheen to it.
Cherry is a gorgeous baby pink which is a great everyday colour which I've been wearing for college as it's nice and natural, but still gives a lovely flush to the cheeks.

Admittedly, I haven't really used Lo-Fi much, but I think it'll be getting much more use in the summer months when it suits my complexion better. DC and Hush are also beautiful highlight shades. Hush reminds me of MAC's Warm Soul blush, and DC is another shade I'm looking forward to playing with in the summer as I think it'll look so beautiful with tanned skin.

                                       Top to Bottom: DC, Hush, Lo-Fi, Angel, Easy, Cherry.

I absolutely love this palette, and I definitely think it's one of the standout products from Gwen's collection. It's €42 for six decent sized blushes that are all excellent quality, long-wearing and pigmented. I think it's great value as they're all shades that you can use all year around, and I've actually been doubling them up as eyeshadows! I love Lo-Fi in the crease with Hush on the lids, it's so simple but effective.

As this is a limited edition collection, I'd definitely recommend snapping this palette up sooner rather than later as I'm sure it'll fly off the shelves! It's on Urban Decay counters now.

Have you tried anything from Gwen's Urban Decay collection?

Zara :-) x