KOSAS Color & Light Palette in "Velvet Melon" ::: Review & Swatches!!!

Today I am talking about the Color & Light : Cream in Velvet Melon from Kosas!

I got this in the Limited Edition Set: Clean Beauty 2.0 (reviewed it here) from Birchbox a couple of months ago. I did have a first impressions type review in that post but I thought I will talk about it separately today. 

This is the first product I have tried from Kosas; their philosophy is to design color cosmetics with active skincare benefits. This blush and highlighter duo is aimed to provide youthful vitality and juicy dewyness 😃. This is one of the brands that I personally would consider a conscious brand. You can read more about their philosophy here. This product is vegan, cruelty free and gluten free - those are definitely good things.

Let's talk about the product!

Shade: BLUSH - The blush is a light peachy shade! It really is beautiful and dewy. This color however is just a little bit light on my medium tan skin-tone. I can make it work and wear it alone, however, it is not the most flattering shade on me (as I said, this was part of a value set so, I didn't get to choose the shade). One really commendable thing about this product is that it is available in a two levels of intensity. One regular and one high intensity. I think the blush in the higher intensity version would have been a better color choice for me. 

           HIGHLIGHTER -The pictures on the shopping websites show the highlighter as a darker shade but in reality it is a gorgeous pale champagne shade. It is really pretty and work well on my skintone. While the blush has a very natural-everyday-dewy vibe going on, the highlighter is quite strong! There is a little bit of shimmer; I do not mind that even a little. What I am trying to say is that when I wear it, it looks like I am 'wearing" a highlighter, not a glow-from-within look! And I am quite okay with that.

Formula, Quality & Staying Power: As I mentioned before, I really do enjoy the formula. It is very emollient, which makes sense as it has rosehip and jojoba seed oil as ingredients. It is easy to apply and blend, my fingertips does the job but I prefer to use a beauty blender to blend it out. What I absolutely love about the blush formula is that it is very easy to layer another formula on top of it. I have been mostly using it as my base blush and then applying different powder blush. It adds a glowy finish and a different interest in the look; I love it. It also definitely makes my blush last longer.

I must admit that I wear the blush more than the highlight. I think I have other highlighter formulas in my collection that I favor more! But whenever I do wear it, I love the look! Eventually I will probably use up the blush sooner than the highlighter.

As far as the staying power is concerned, I find that the highlighter stays put for the whole day. I am not sure about the blush! These days I am mostly staying at home and I do see it on my cheeks at the end of the day but then again, I haven't had the chance to test it out under a more challenging environment 😉. 

Price: The retail price for this is $34 for a total of 0.32 oz/9g of product. It does sound a bit expensive however if I compare it with other cream products in terms of cost vs amount of product, it does not seem that expensive. I would still personally prefer to buy it at some kind of discount/sale. One thing to note here is that the shelf life is only 6 months which seems like a short span for a product this size. 

Packaging: Simple, clean black durable plastic packaging. I like it. The mirror is also decently sized.

Availability: This product is available in Sephora, Credo Beauty and from Kosas website.

Overall, I like both the products and I am getting a lot of use out of the blush as a base blush. I am not wearing the highlighter as much but I do enjoy it whenever I wear it.

Do you have any shade from this range? Let me know!

Love

~Arrru