Reviews
Beset by what feels like a chronic sense of powerlessness on a planet barrelling towards its own self-inflicted extinction, I was excited to try TikTok’s latest viral blush hack, which involves using blush in place of your usual contour and stamping it into the hollows of your face, just to feel something. Anything.
The hack, originally conceived by content creator @fish42, has elicited a deluge of comments, ranging from “this is 100 percent life-changing”, a “10/10 distraction” with one commenter going as far as to declare that “now is the winter of our discontent.”
Keen to try it out on my own face, I reached for my favourite cream blush in the shade Withered Coral, and using my angled brush, pushed the product into my hairline, jawline, and under the cheekbones. My verdict? I looked heat-stricken and unwell.
Honestly, I did notice an improvement – a brief reprieve from thinking about the environmental and political catastrophe that envelops us. But for me, it’s not a game-changer. Maybe I just have the right face shape or biochemical constitution for this particular hack to pull me from my despair.
“If you haven’t contoured with blush yet, what are you even doing?” questions the creator behind the trend in her caption for the viral video, in a not so subtle ode to the power of self-mastery when all hope feels lost. A thought provoking message from a 24-year-old with red all over her face, looking like she is having an allergic reaction to sunlight.
