N.Y.C. New York Color Cheek Glow: Outside Cafe

N.Y.C. New York Color Cheek Glow in Outside Cafe comes in a very plain and simple package, just the product and a brush...no mirror. The brush is one of the really scratchy ones you'll want to toss, but very few people use the included brushes anyway. Plus, when you're paying $2.99 you don't expect much more.

Outside Cafe is best described as peachy pink with a hint of bronze. It has some shimmer, but it's the kind of shimmer that I would refer to as a "sheen." It shows up as more of a glow than a frosty shimmer, and you can't spot any actual particles of shimmer, which I really like.

The downfall to this blush is that the pigmentation is just...not there. The powder itself is so hard that I had to really rub my brush in the pan to pick up the slightest amount of product. On my bare skin, when I tried to swatch it for you guys, I couldn't get it to show up at all. It does show up a bit more over foundation, but even on my super-pale skin, I had to pack it on to get the slightest hint of color. The sheen/glow is definitely there, but the color is not.

Even though I said the shimmer was very understated, I found that by the time I was able to see a bit of color, it was starting to get overly shimmery for my taste due to how much of it I had to use. So I suppose, applied lightly/normally, I could use this just for a bit of a glow like I would a highlighter.

Since the powder is so ridiculously hard, I want to say that it's probably not supposed to be like this. I'm wondering if I just received a bad one, since there are many good reviews floating around for this. I did check MakeupAlley, and apparently the latest reviewer had the same problem as me, so maybe there is a bad batch out right now. Who knows...

Would I recommend it? No, not this shade at least. I think the Color Wheel blushes are MUCH better than the Cheek Glow, and I quite like those. But that's just me...as I said, there are many positive reviews for the Cheek Glow in both this color and others, so your mileage may vary.