Hello you lovely people… oh how I’ve missed you! :) I’d hoped to blog about this several days ago, but due to a combination of half term holidays and my little girl’s first sleepover, this has been my first chance! I hope you’ve all had a lovely weekend… mine has been spent handing round popcorn, cheese puffs and Percy Pig juice, watching equally cheesy movies and rustling up croissants with chocolate spread and fresh strawberries for breakfast!
I’m excited to tell you about this product. I knew I’d like it… I mean just look at the prettiness… but I didn’t expect to love it quite as much as I do!
When I first heard about Benefit Hervana I thought it was an all-over face powder, something that would add a radiant glow and a light flush of colour. It was only when I saw it in House of Fraser, Belfast, that I realised it was intended for use as a blusher. I was quite taken aback by how it looked on the Benefit girl… the berry tones above were the most dominant on her cheeks and it looked much deeper in colour than I expected. At this stage I hadn’t received mine and was a little unsure of what I’d think - happily I was to be pleasantly surprised.
Packaged in a colourful little cardboard box with promises of halos, fluffy clouds and good karma, it includes a mirror and an angled brush. I’d heard poor reports about brushes with other Benefit boxed powders, so I was pleasantly surprised at the effectiveness of this one… it’s quite soft and fluffy and the angle really helps with application, though admittedly I prefer an alternative method.
When swatched the colours are super gentle shades of pink, coral, peach and cream - believe it or not these are the heaviest swatches I could get. All of these swatches are of the four shades swirled together, except the last one which shows the individual tones. The deepest tones are from the hand swatch and it took several layers for me to achieve this depth.
“These four shades - lucky shell, divine peach, heavenly rose and berry delight - blend together perfectly for a heavenly flush of enlightment.”
I have been applying Hervana with this adesign Small Kabuki brush, soon to be added to the collection at Cocktail Cosmetics. It’s extremely soft and applies Hervana in a gorgeous light flush, which I think is one of the most flattering blusher looks I’ve tried. It works really well on pale Winter skin, but I can imagine it looking really pretty with a tan too. As you can see above, you get more depth of colour with the actual Hervana brush, but personally I find the softer glow much more flattering.
Here it is applied… these pics aren’t great as I wasn’t planning to take any that day (so excuse the messy hair & smudged eyeliner) but hopefully they will give you an idea of what I mean by 'the Hervana flush’!
As you can see from the top pic, there is a teensy amount of shimmer in direct sunlight. I’m not big into shimmer as I’m of an age where I find it highlights the very things I want to conceal, but this gives a mere tease of a twinkle and it’s really quite cute.
It *is* possible to sweep diagonally across the palette and pick up the pink, coral or highlight tones, especially if you use the slim end of the brush that comes with the powder, but personally I think these work best swirled together, as they are intended.
“What goes around comes around…. Swirl and sweep on this ‘good karma’ face powder for a soft orchid blossom flush.”
Heavenly Rose & Berry Delight ingredients for anyone who is interested… please click to enlarge this (or any) pic to view in detail.
{Are you girls proud of me finally getting the hang of creating collages with text?! A special thank you to the very sweet and patient @lydiasparkles who talked me through the final stages today after I’d spent, oh… 3 hours trying to figure it out myself! xxx}
Benefit Hervana costs £23.50 and is available now at Benefit Cosmetics
What do you think… can you see this little number lifting you to Cloud 9?
Sample
