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Image / Beauty

The expert guide to AW19’s easiest beauty trend, healthy flush blush


By Holly O'Neill
21st Aug 2019
The expert guide to AW19’s easiest beauty trend, healthy flush blush

Blend sunset shades of creamy blusher for this season’s easiest trend: flush blush. Think post-run pinky glow.


Health has come for make-up with a post-gym meets country girl flush bringing a healthy face to the season. Raw, ruddy windburn is the look – like young Prince William and Princess Diana, or your cousins who grew up on farms. 

With flush blush, we’re talking all the environmental effects: freckles are here to stay, apply your bronzer liberally and wear your blusher like sunburn.

Backstage at Isabel Marant AW19

Flush blush is the next generation of no-make-up make-up, but it’s still a world away from the contoured face of lore. The bronzer isn’t sculpted and the blush isn’t doll-like; think realness, softness, relaxed flushes in warm and bright, peach and orange sunset shades, not candied pinks. No chiselled-out cheekbones required.

No-make-up make-up requires more work than the name would suggest, but there are easy artistic details required to keep this look modern.

“The less foundation, the better,” says make-up artist Christine Lucignano. “Textures are key. Start with a cream or liquid and pat the product in – you want it to become part of the skin. Then use a sheer powder version of the colour to set it. If you want the look to stay dewy, use a sheer powder product that has a bit of sheen in the base, like Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powder, €47.”

Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powder, €47

The tools you need in your arsenal are blending heroes – “you need your fingers, a damp beauty sponge and a lightly packed complexion brush, nothing too dense,” says Christine. “This is meant to be a real, breathable look. ”

Blend your blush low on the cheeks and add a touch of bronzer to the bridge of the nose for the most believably natural effect that blends into the skin. “For bronze, I use Chanel Soleil Tan De Chanel, €41 for fair to medium-dark skins,” suggests Christine, “and Huda Beauty Tantour, €30 for darker skins. For the pinker vibe, try Giorgio Armani Neo Nude Armani A-Blush, €40, Nars Orgasm Liquid Highlighter, €32, or Benefit Cosmetics original Benetint, €34.50.

Chanel Soleil Tan De Chanel, €41

As for the rest of your make-up? “It’s the perfect time to feature a bushy brow and a few extra freckles,” advises Christine. “For your freckles, use a few tones of a brow ink and do this process before you burnish the skin with your bronze or pink shade as it will help melt the freckles in.”

Photography by Chanel and Jason Lloyd Evans. 

IMAGE cover September 2019

See the full AW19 Beauty Trend Report in the September issue of IMAGE Magazine, on sale now. 

Read more: Future icon: Glossier have nailed it with this brow product

Read more: Stranger Things’ star Millie Bobby Brown is launching her own beauty brand

Read more: What can we do about split ends? Can we ever ‘heal’ them?