Hello beautyholics and welcome to the 4th episode of the Rudiments of Rouge! 😀

After talking about the two popular types of blushes, today I’d like to share with you on how to apply blush on your cheeks.

I’m not speaking for all women, of course, but a majority of them aren’t keen on using blush because they’re worried of how red it will make their faces look. The biggest apprehension is that the rouged cheeks won’t look natural. It might look like pink china doll cheeks or worse, look tarty.

No no, I don’t mean she looks tarty!

I totally get that. Heck when I first started using blush 10 years ago, I used one that’s so sheer and with such a light hand that you can’t even tell I’m wearing blush! It was like, and the point of wearing blush was …??

*cricket sounds*

It doesn’t have to be like that. Blush has to be applied to a point where it’s visible on the cheeks but not so much that it draws immediate attention to it. The best way to describe a good application of blush is when you look like you’ve just had a good exercise. The flush that naturally appears on your cheeks is what you’re aiming for. That’s a start. If you’re prone to redness or have rosacea, then there’ll be a lot more redness to the face, not just the cheeks. The redness might spread past the apples of the cheeks to the jaw. That’s not the level of flush we’re looking for.

By the way, these methods are just for blush application. It doesn’t include contouring or highlighting, which will be covered in a future post (y’know, once I master them myself! :P). Bear in mind though as I’m not a makeup artist nor an expert in makeup. These application tips work well for the shape of my face. If you have a different face shape (long, petite, round, square and so on), it may not work for you. My best tip for you is always to experiment with different methods and see which one works best for you. 🙂

Read More »

Hello and welcome to the 3rd episode of the mini series, Rudiments of Rouge! I hope you’ve enjoyed the first two installments on the basics of blush. Today’s post is about the two popular types of blushes and that’s cream and powder.

Ahh the battle of the blushes begin when powders came to fight with creams. The question I often get is this: Powder blushes vs cream blushes. Which one’s better?

Oh boy, that’s like asking me if I prefer using a pencil or a pen. If I prefer orange-scented or mango-scented products. If I prefer my left eye or right eye. Hahaha you get the picture :P. Both are equally good. It just depends on what you want your makeup to look like.

Powder blushes give a more matte, polished finish to the skin. You apply it when you’ve set your makeup with face powder. Many find powder blushes easier to apply (including me) as you just use a blush brush, press it against the powder and then slowly tap the brush on your cheeks to see how much you’d need. You don’t have to worry about it setting too quickly like cream blushes. As they’re easier to apply, you’ll find that the ratio of powder blushes to cream blushes by beauty brands selling in store is significantly higher.

Read More »

Image credit: Roar

Happy hump day folks! We’re taking a bit of a break from all that blush talk today and doing the usual Wednesday’s bloggie chat instead. 🙂

Remember last week when I spoke about reader engagement and how to get people talking? A lot of you mentioned getting a lot more comments from Facebook than you do your blogs. That’s great! Engagement is engagement regardless of where you get it. I know of bloggers who receive a lot more interaction on Instagram and Pinterest. Again, a good thing.

Now that you know which social media platform most engages your readers, how do you monitor its growth?

On our blogs, we have Google Analytics, Statcounter, PMetrics or any other web statistics tool to monitor their growth. Every month, you’ll notice if you have more/less readers than the last. You can tell if your blog is growing in size and readers or if it’s declining. If it’s growing, that’s great! If there’s a decline, then it’s time to see what you can do to improve your readership. But what about your social media platforms?

Read More »