REVIEW: Soap & Glory Cheekmate (Rosy Rub-On Cheek & Lip Stain)

Today started off as a rainy day in London town, so I thought it would be a good idea to review a product that was the opposite of that. NO, not fake tan. I say I hate fake tan, mostly because I secretly don't understand it (although that's probably the most common reason to hate anything, and the most ignorant too). Here is another dirty secret that isn't really a secret: I don't understand makeup. As a teenager I just put on thick eyeliner (pencil) and mascara. It was only in my early twenties that I started wearing primer and BB cream and concealer and all that good stuff. Before then I just rocked the world with my shiny-faced pasty self, my badly applied eyeliner and an occasional swipe of my mum's YSL concealer pen whenever I had a spot that was unacceptably angry at the world.

I've lost my track of thought. Okay. A product that's the opposite of a rainy day, or supposed to be, anyway. I've never been a fan of powder blusher. Too... cakey. I already have my 'Holy crap, cover that oily sheen up' powder so I sure as hell don't need even more powder on top of that. I mentioned in my other review that I like my skin to feel as clean as possible, as free of product as it can be, and so when I saw this I thought "Hey. That would work." It reminds me of Benefit's Benetint, which I have never used because ha ha intern wages ha ha they don't exist, but I would definitely be interested in buying that as well so that I could make a comparison.

What is it about this product that makes me think of sunny days, you ask? Well, I'm super pale, I burn if you stand me in the sun for thirty seconds, so instead of tans, in my head sunny days are about rosy cheeks, fresh skin, bright eyes. And there's not much that brightens up my English rose (such a pleasant euphemism for 'pale to the point of looking unhealthy, and also slightly blotchy') complexion more than pink cheeks. As I've already said, I tend to steer away from powder blusher, and the idea of cream blusher is... well. No. But this seemed less scary, less intimidating, less likely to make me feel as though I'd caked my face in makeup products.

The texture is more like a gel than I'd thought it would be. Not a criticism, just a thing. It's probably a good thing because it made it easy to handle for a makeup novice like me. And the colour is... Okay, let's not lie. It scared the shit out of me. It's this deep luscious magenta, this gorgeous heady colour. And it's sitting there on your fingertip and you're supposed to put it on your face.

The main thing that my brain told me at that point was, "Your face was not naturally designed to be magenta."

This is true. But I put some on anyway. You smooth it into the apples of your cheekbones, firm rounded movements, until the only way you can tell it's there is if you compare it with your other cheek. It looks natural and it feels good. It's light and it's lovely. It invigorates your face without screaming "HEY LOOK GUYS. I HAVE CHEEK TINT ON." which is an important part of everyday makeup for me. Look as flawless as possible while also attempting to look entirely makeup free! Basically my face is made of lies. Anyway:

Look! There's a picture of it on my hand. I carefully chose a picture where the shape of my hand is as much like a sea monster as possible. You're welcome. Do you also enjoy my bulging veins? So do I, mes amis. So do I. Anyway, we can see that deep alarming pink colour and then, below, the way that it smoothed out. I now have a smear of that precise shape on my hand and it's not particularly budging, so spoiler alert: SMOOTH THIS SHIT IN QUICKLY or you will have shapes on your cheeks that are not particularly cute unless you are going to clown auditions that day. In which case, don't use cheek tint, use face paint. My makeup tip for the day. I'm very helpful. Also, use a tiny bit. Not a lot. Definitely don't use as much as I used the first time I tried this out. Anyway, it turns your cheeks into small, pleasantly glowing hubs of warmth. A-plus, in my book.

My biggest problem with this tint was the way that it works on lips. I haven't found any lip tints thus far in my life that are as moisturising as I would like them to be, and this is no different. I get that it's hard in a product to have it be both this thing that doesn't make your cheeks big beacons of scarlet shininess and also something that doesn't dry out your lips to a hollow husk of what they once were, but maybe they could try just a little harder. So I won't be using it on my lips, but on my cheeks? Hell yeah. This is a good product. Not amazing, not perfect, but solid, good. Cheap, also, at £8 from Boots (go for a 3 for 2, obviously. Use your Boots points, EVEN MORE OBVIOUSLY).

And it makes me think of summer. Flushed cheeks, bright eyes, laughter, warm hands on cold drinks, ice water beads on the sides of the glass. The gleam of your skin as summer sinks right into your flesh. Even easily burned skin like mine. The mornings are grey and rainy here in London, but the afternoons are bright. It works.

Another review of this product that I enjoyed was here at A Scottish Lass.