Blush Love: Benefit Coralista

Benefit Coralista

I am jumping on the Benefit boxed blush bandwagon. I have read and seen wonderful reviews for Benefit's blushes. My problem always was that I had a hard time swallowing the $28 price tag. I know, I know. You do get a lot of product in the box. The blushes are pigmented, silky, and blend beautifully. I knew all of these legitimate reasons for the pricing, but I just hadn't bitten the bullet. But recently, I got the opportunity to test it out without spending a penny. Well, theoretically anyway. I'd reached my 500 point level at Sephora (after more than one year) and the beauty product up for redemption was a box of Coralista and a travel-sized Badgal mascara. Amazing, right?!  Here was my chance. I could finally get the blush I'd been lustfully gazing at for an eternity (and continuously talking myself out of buying) without shelling out any additional cash for it. I was so excited. I was even more ecstatic when the blush lived up to its expectations. It's a beautiful coral-peach-pink with a gold undertone. It's not really shimmery, but instead glowy. When I use it, I sometimes wonder if its similar to Nars Orgasm. I don't know, since I don't really have it. Has anyone compared these side by side? Is Orgasm peachy or more pink?

Coralista swatch

With that question nagging at me, I decided to pull out my Nars Deep Throat (one of my favorite bargain finds from TJ Maxx, which I bought in a duo gift set with Striptease lip gloss). The similarities are pretty astonishing. The main difference is that Deep Throat is a bit darker and pinker, while Coralista is peachy and lighter. Also, Deep Throat has golden shimmer in it as opposed to an golden undertone. When you look at them side by side they look almost identical, save for Deep Throat's fine golden shimmer-glitter. When you apply Coralista you definitely see the golden undertone, which picks up light and gives you a beautiful glow, but there are no fine flecks of glitter in the powder. Otherwise, they are pretty close.

My Coralista boxed blush has 0.42 oz of product ($28), versus Deep Throat, which as 0.16 oz of product ($27). That put things in perspective for me. While I had not paid $27 for my Nars blush, I paid $25 for the blush and lip gloss, I could get a blush that is of the same great quality and get more than twice as much product by going with a Benefit boxed blush.

I absolutely adore the peachy, coral, golden hue for the spring and summer months. I'd actually wear it all year long, but it seems so perfect for this time of year, when the season brings beautiful color back into our lives. It gives you such a soft and pretty flush. But a word to the wise, you can apply too much, so build it up lightly so you don't end up looking over done. When I do finally have to replace this (which I suspect will take a long time to do since there is so much in there), I'll be much less timid about the price since I know how much I love it.

The only thing I don't really like is that the bulky box doesn't lend itself to travel, so you can't easily slip it into a small makeup bag. But if that's the worse thing I have to say,  I can't really complain.