“Fake awake in just one stroke with Dandelion—Benefit’s long-lasting, pressed highlighting powder in ballerina-pink. Its shimmery, satiny, and radiant formula leaves an immediate perk-me-up finish that brightens up your face—even at eight in the morning.”

I’ve only recently started getting in to blushes. For years, I didn’t wear any. My rosacea flush was terrible, and I had such a fear of being too red/pink that I just never even bothered to try applying any.

As the years went on and I learned to keep my rosacea in check, I found myself sometimes having the opposite problem: without blush, my naturally pale complexion kind of looked… Well, sickly. I was pale and washed out. I needed a touch of color on those days, so I slowly began dipping my toe into the world of blush and found one or two that I loved–usually peachy or coral-toned blushes that didn’t call too much attention to my pink undertones. I just knew, in my heart of hearts, that pinks would look terrible on me–so I never bothered to try them

Then, the Tarte Rainforest After Dark Eye and Cheek Palette came into my life. The blush included in it–described as a “nude rose”–was a pink shade. I tried it on with trepidation… And fell head over heels in love. I found myself wearing it every day, even when I wasn’t using the eyeshadows in the palette. Me, loving a pink blush!

I felt like Ariel, singing about the whole new world of makeup that had just been opened up to me!

Around the same time, I went on a bit of a Benefit Cosmetics kick. I had already fallen in love with their ‘Hello Flawless!’ Oxygen Wow Liquid Foundation and, again, a floodgate was opened. It was a brand I had always heard such wonderful things about, but had–for some unknown reason–had never bothered to try for myself. That had to change. I had to try more and more of their products. Their Dandelion Blush was one of the first things I had to get my hands on.

Dandelion is one of Benefit’s boxed blushes, housed in a cute little 0.25oz green cardboard box with a sort of retro-style image of a dandelion on the lid. It retails for $28.00 and is pretty easy to find–I believe most Ultas and Sephoras carry it, as well places like HSN.com.

Inside the box, under the lid, is a small square mirror, the square pan of blush itself, and a small rectangular natural-bristled brush. That brush (which I believe comes with each of the boxed products) is, in my opinion, fairly useless for blush application. The bristles themselves are pretty decent–soft but not floppy–but that shape? Noooooope. That shape is just all wrong! However, I’ve heard that they make excellent contour brushes, especially for a nice, defined contour. I’ll be trying mine out that way myself!

The size/shape of the container does makes these blushes a bit of a pain to store in a shallow drawer like where my blushes are currently housed (which may be one of the reasons I unconsciously avoided them for so long). Nitpick aside, eith a little maneuvering I was able to find a home for this one my drawer–its just worth mentioning that they are a little on the bulky side.

In fact, the packaging is my only complaint about the product. The blush itself is fantastic–soft and buttery but not at all chalky. Not a lot of powder gets kicked up when you swirl your brush in it. This is a very sheer, soft pink blush with just the slightest hint of peach. It has a lovely satin finish. I detect a trace of shimmer to it in certain lights, but it is by no means glittery. On my cheeks, it does a fabulous job of adding a very sheer, natural flush of color with a wonderful luminosity that looks lit-from-within.

I love that I can apply this pretty freely–even with a heavy hand, this blush goes on quite light and it blends out like a dream. As you can see in the swatch below–which was swatched three-four times with a finger–even built up, this shade is very forgiving to those of us with fair skin–yet it really dos a wonderful job of giving me a nice hint of color when I’d otherwise look pasty and half-dead.

Dandelion really does deliver that extra perk-me-up I need on a early mornings, when I feel anything but perky!

Swatch

Verdict

This was a winner with me; I adore it. It is a perfect shade for those of us with fair skin who just need a little pick me up.

Fantastic. Can’t say enough good things about it. If it came in a sleek clam-shell casing, I would call this the perfect blush and not have a single complaint about it!

This was my first foray into the Benefit Cosmetics blushes but it certainly won’t be my last. In fact, I already have another one on order, so expect another review coming up in the not so distant future….