You would think that emulating someone in urgent care would be the last thing you’d want to do after a global pandemic. But right now, febrile blush is having a moment—and beauty trends know no logic.
Or maybe they do. Blush gives vigor and energy to the face, adding warmth and the impression of blood under the skin. It’s the look of a mountain girl, a well-fed infant, a runner, a fully detoxed health nut. Charles Darwin once called blushing “the most peculiar and the most human of expressions.” After the long reign of contour in makeup, with its palette of browns and beiges, blush is a positive counterpoint. It gives animation to the skin. It’s proof of life.
The current approach to blush is to apply it flamboyantly, from forehead to ears to chin and across the bridge of the nose. “Blush used to be something you added to look healthy and youthful—it wasn’t the focus,” says Fulvia Farolfi, a makeup artist and ambassador for Chanel U.S. “The look was mascara, brow, concealer, blush, lip balm. Now it’s mascara, brow, concealer, and blush, blush, blush, blush.” Blush is hogging all the attention, trying to upstage eyelash extensions and glossy, engorged lips. And that is no small feat.
At the recent Chanel Métiers d’Art show, in Manchester, England, the makeup artists swirled hot-pink blush in the center of the cheeks, intensifying the look of the classic English rose. Dua Lipa, Emily Ratajkowski, Imaan Hammam, and the patron saint of beauty trends, Hailey Bieber, have all been out and about with their faces rouged to the hilt.
“Blush can also be worn on its own,” says Farolfi—or nearly so. She likes the monochromatic makeup that Hailey Bieber often applies, with one cream blush on the eyes, cheeks, and lips. The current shades of choice are hot pink, rosy pink, dusty rose, and, for dark skin, an orangey rose.
Farolfi formerly considered concealer and an eyelash curler as her makeup essentials, the things she’d take to a desert island. Now she adds blush to her survival list. For me, it’s sunscreen and nothing else, because why wear makeup when no one is around to see it? But that’s no fun.
You wouldn’t need blush if, when you washed ashore, you forgot to bring sunscreen. Though a sunscreen nut like me is arguably someone who needs rouging the most. Blush is being applied deliberately to mimic a burn. You see its florid excess all over social media, where people are also dotting their cheeks, the tips of their noses, and under their eyes with drawn-on freckles. That’s one way to break your dermatologist’s heart. “Since you can’t take sun anymore, this gives you that sexy feeling you used to get from a little sun,” says Farolfi.
It can all get a little crazy, and maybe that’s part of its appeal. Diana Vreeland, the former editor of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, wore piles of red blush on her cheeks, sweeping it up to her temples, forehead, and ears. A flight attendant once leaned over her and whispered, “Here, honey, let me rub in your rouge for you.” Vreeland turned to her seatmate, Bill Blass, and said, “Isn’t that sweet? So American.”
Linda Wells is the Editor at AIR MAIL LOOK
