Floral inspired blush to banish a winter grey face

Florals? For a spring flush? Groundbreaking, says you. But relying on natural splendour as a beauty ritual is a tale as old as time; take the Celtic tradition of washing your face in dew at dawn on the first of May and letting it dry in the fresh air to guarantee a flawless complexion for the year – or any child in Ireland who has mixed flowers with water in a beach bucket to make perfume. With the promise of warmer days ahead, welcome the season with an easier method of looking reinvigorated than gathering a jar of grass dew – bright, playful shades of floral-inspired blush. To banish your winter grey face, look to creamy textures that become one with the skin, like Glossier’s foolproof Cloud Paint in sunset-inspired shades or Chanel’s red camellia-inspired Lip and Cheek Balm or dab, dab, dab the tiniest bit of Max Factor Miracle Pure Cream Blush leftover on your fingertips to the bridge of your nose for a sunkissed finish.

A balmy texture settles perfectly into all skin textures with no fuss – Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty blushers suit all skin tones and have a major colour payoff, whereas the Giorgio Armani Neo Nude Melting Colour Balms and Bobbi Brown Pot Rouges leave a soft, healthy finish. Lightweight skin tints are TikTok’s trend du jour, and the bestselling Benefit Benetint – the brand’s first product, originally created in the 1970s by boiling rose petals as a nipple tint for exotic dancers – remains the best of the bunch for a natural pinched-cheek, bitten-lip stain. Charlotte Tilbury’s unbeatable blushes leave a veil of petal-soft colour, while the Yves Saint Laurent Nu Lip & Cheek Balmy Tints inject the skin with a bracing winter walk glow.

If you’re a powder traditionalist, warm up the skin with the buildable, vibrant hues of the floral-designed Clinique Cheek Pop Blushers, swirl Estée Lauder Pure Color Envy Sculpting Blush on the apples of the cheeks, or look to Chantecaille’s floral-inspired Wild Meadows collection for a rosy fresh finish. Finally, for blush-in-a-rush, you’ll want a stick. Swipe on Westman Atelier Baby Cheeks Sticks, Clinique Chubby Sticks or Lancôme’s new L’Absolu Rouge lipstick-blush hybrids for a convenient, blendable and no-fuss colour flush. Fresh as a daisy.

Backstage beauty images by Stefan Knauer. A version of this article originally appeared in the Spring issue of IMAGE Magazine. We may earn a commission if you buy something from any affiliate links on our site.