Merit Flush Balm Review

[unpaid/sample/affiliate/ad] I’ve reviewed a couple of Merit products before and really liked them – Day Glow Gloss and Shade Slick Highlighter. The premise of this brand is to be minimalistic for pared back looks that veer to natural, like-me-but-better vibes rather than glam and obvious make up.

This time I’m trying the Flush Balm and The Minimalist Complexion Stick. The blush, in Cheeky, is an easy win – simple to use although there is no advantage to the dome shape because it still needs to be blended in. The shade is a good suit-all, the texture is glidey and silky and available in nine shades. But, it’s £32 and that seems a lot to me especially as the packaging is nothing special – lightweight and plasticky.

I’ve swatched both the blush and the stick above. I’m no longer used to this texture of foundation so to me it felt heavy as I put it on but actually, once blended didn’t feel heavy at all. In the swatch I haven’t blended it at all and blending is really key to this looking good on the skin. The Minimalist Complexion Stick has an excellent shade range with 20 shades and it’s £40. It’s the sort of thing that you can use to give you coverage where you need it rather than all over – however, I’m quite nervous about that philosophy because it’s really rare you can find such an exact match to your skin that any coverage is undetectable. Coverage also changes the look of texture so there’s that, too. I’d suggest if you do add on an adhoc basis you do it in a good light. I can see where I’ve blended this over my chin so clearly I haven’t done a good enough job this time. I also noticed that it didn’t sit all that happily over what was underneath – lazily, it’s Erborian CC water as I tried the Stick straight afterwards but that’s indicative of ingredients not working well together which might be something to bear in mind when you use moisturiser or SPF first. The brands says of the stick, ‘it’s not a foundation and it’s not a concealer’ but then doesn’t really specifically say what they think it is other than ‘coverage’.

I mean, I am being picky because they do both look good on my skin but for £40 and £32 I want to see some really high performance. If you’re using the stick like a foundation please note that it’s slender and therefore probably won’t last as long as you’d like. You can find it HERE and the blush HERE.