Vincent Longo Day Play Duo Compact Blush

I haven't really been thinking about blush lately, until I looked at the Smashbox fall collection yesterday, I can honestly state that I haven't been looking at new formulas or shades lately.  I had purchased so many new shades from Illamasqua last spring and have been rotating in between them and Benefit's Bella Bamba over the past few weeks.  I started thinking about blush again after reading about that formula and specially Vincent Longo blush formulas.  I have loved the Water Canvas Blush formula for years and I revisited the company's website to see if any new shades were released over the past few months.  No new shades have been released, but I did start looking at some of the other formulas and thought about ones that I have tried over the years.  One of the formulas that I used a few years ago and have fond memories of is the Day Play Duo Compact Blush, a compact that contains two complementary shades that can be used alone or mixed together.

The Day Play Duo Compact is a product that allows the user to mix the two shades of blush in order to create a full variety of shades.  "This powder blush captures the vitality of a youthful glow with its creamy, densely pigmented formula.  The texture disperses evenly and blends effortlessly leaving a radiant glow to the cheeks.", states the Vincent Longo website in an overall product description.  This line is now much reduced in availability, a complaint that I have had with quite a few makeup and skincare lines lately.  I feel like as soon as Sephora reduces the counter size or decides to stop carrying the brand, almost every other website and retailer follows their lead.  Can I start a website of the "rejected" lines?  I bet that I could make it a pay very quickly...

This product can be applied in a variety of ways.  Vincent Longo suggests the following mode, "Dip into the Day side to create a natural daytime glow, and the Play side to contour the cheeks and add drama for night.  The two shades can also be blended together to create a unique, multi-tonal color for any time of the day."  This product is currently available in the following six shades.

- Canyon Light - medium warm bronze/pale tan
- Coral Crush - bright warm peach coral/pale peach
- Heart's Desire - medium plum/medium rose
- Innocence - medium pink/light to medium warm peach
- Misty Blossom - medium warm pink coral/light warm pink
- Temple Peach - medium peach/deep warm peach

Heart's Desire is the shade that I always used from this product line, I have found that many of the blush and face shades from this company tend to lean toward the warm side and I often have a hard time finding shades that are flattering on me, even the pink corals are warmer than I would normally find flattering.  The Day shade in the Heart's Desire compact is the rose shade and the plum shade is the Play shade, I use the rose shade by itself and then mix the two of them to add a bit of the pink tone to the plum shade.  I don't love the plum shade by itself so I do need to add some of the rose shade and the mixture is much improved.  The pigmenton both the Day and Play are decent, they have a nice color payoff but Illamaqua and NARS both contain much more pigment than this line does.  I prefer the Water Canvas Blush from this company, the pigmentation and wear are nicer.  Since the rest of the shades are too warm for me, I can't see that I will need to buy anymore shades from this product line.  I wish that this company would continue to offer new products and shades, many formulas are top quality but I never see anything new that I wish to order...

photo courtesy of Vincent Longo