For someone who is nutty about blush like I am, it’s only right that I talk more about its basics. This will be specially useful for those who would like to step into the world of rouge but aren’t sure how to.

Enjoy!

Rouge: French for red

Back in the day, blush (or blusher) wasn’t known as such. It was known as rouge. In fact, up to this day, my mother doesn’t call blush BLUSH. She still refers to it as rouge.

As popular as blush now is to give an appearance of youth and radiance, it didn’t always start this way. In fact, it has quite a history. In Ancient Egypt, both men and women wore rouge in addition to the heavy kohl makeup on their eyes. It didn’t start off as powder but a thick paste that can be made from things like strawberries, red fruits and vegetables. When it came to powder, it was finely crushed ochre. In ancient Greece, wealthy elite women whitened their complexion with chalk or lead face powder (which was extremely dangerous) and painted their cheeks with a paste of crushed seeds and berries.

Rouge has seen a rise and decline throughout the years. With the rise of Christianity came the decline of rouge. It was deemed as too promiscuous with new strict dress codes and behaviour. Come the Middle Ages, women went back to blush by regularly bleeding themselves to obtain a pale complexion and then put a mixture of water and strawberries on their cheeks for a soft rosy colour. Queen Elizabeth embraced the rouge and so did plenty of women. After the French revolution, it declined again as makeup was seen as extravagant and improper.

There’s only an acceptable amount of rouge women were allowed to wear. It was the signature of wealthy upper class women. It was also a mark of prostitutes if too much was worn.

After going through so many ups and downs, rouge (or blush, as it’s now called) is here to stay. It’s a staple in any woman’s makeup bag for that pop of colour and youthful appearance. It’s definitely a must in my makeup bag.

The reason I like the blush out of all the types of makeup is how it can change the look of someone. I can be sick as a dog and look like death. With a pinch of colour on my cheeks, it adds the illusion of health and I instantly look better (not necessarily prettier but at least, I look healthy).

Lipstick savants will disagree with me but I find that blush does a better job in perking up the face than lippie. Before you throw eggs at me, let me explain. Let’s do an experiment, shall we? Use a foundation one shade lighter than your skin. Powder it and then leave it alone for a while. Apply your favourite lipstick and look at yourself in the mirror. Next, remove that lipstick, put lipbalm on and apply a pink blush in your cheeks. Now look at the mirror again. Do you see the difference? Which is more natural? Which one makes you look younger?

The point of the experiment and for you to apply a lighter foundation is to see what you’d look like if you were feeling sickly and a bit paler than normal. Would your appearance perk up with a bit of lippie or blush? For me, when I’m not feeling my best yet I still need to head out and meet people, I make sure I “rouge up” well so that I still look relatively normal than to show them my sickly-cat pale face. If I just had lipstick on, I look “heaty” (a Chinese health description that to this day, I still don’t know how to describe) with redder than normal lips.

There’s a reason why people remarked “oh you look the picture of health!” when there’s colour on your cheeks. When cheeks are ruddy from the cold, it gives the person a lovely flush of colour and health. It’s a look that can be easily recreated from just a bit of rouge on the cheeks. That’s why above all, I love the blush.

Have I convinced you yet? 😉

Stay tuned to tomorrow on how to choose the right shade of blush for you!

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