I've been wanting to do this review for awhile now because I was so miffed about it :P Anyway I bought this about early September in Raisin Glow 50. I didn't care so much about the blush color, I just was looking for a nice bronzer for contouring, so I got a darker duo than I normally would've chosen.
The packaging isn't bad; it's quite hefty and sturdy. It comes with a brush, which I used several times and can conclusively say is a cheap piece o' shite. It's machine cut (aka jagged edges) and the bristles having been falling out since Day 1. Another design flaw is that since the blush is right next to the bronzer, the fallout from the blush tends to migrate over to the bronzer side. This wouldn't be a problem if say, the blush weren't so dark or if there wasn't so much blush fallout.
The swatches I took turned out badly so I didn't include them. I would say the color you see is what you get on your face (at least for the first five minutes...).
Good:
- very pigmented (the blush is actually more pigmented than the bronzer I think)
- it is indeed "lightweight and velvety" as written on packaging
- bronzer doesn't have much fallout
- a little goes a long way
- the micro-glitters are quite pretty
Bad:
- blush is so pigmented that when it shifts over to bronzer side it messes the color up
- blush has a lot of fallout
- the brush that comes with this duo is awful
- bronzer oxidizes orange on your face
- bronzer turns very streaky over time
The last bit is why I especially hate this duo and had to return it. When I put the bronzer on my face it's not powdery but still streaks a bit. I could live with a bit of streaking except that if I sweat even a little, the bronzer's streakiness goes from bad to terrible and turns orange. I never noticed how awful the affect was until I took some pictures on Halloween. I mentioned in my American McGee Alice makeup tutorial that I didn't get to take a lot of closeups of my face....well this is the reason why:
LT: No flash. RT: Flash.
WTF is that?! It looks terrible in both - even Po'shop can't save this mess. This is less than one hour after I put on my makeup. All I'd done was run outside for maybe 1/2 an hour to take a picture in the woods and come back in to take close up shots...and FYI, it'd been a cool day so I don't even think I sweat very much (if at all). Needless to say after I examined the closeups I was pissed off enough to return the duo the next day.
Overall
I do not recommend this duo. It was pretty expensive to me ($10.77 at Walmart), the bronzer awful, the brush useless and the blush had too much fallout.
