Canmake Cheek Gradation Part III

Just got around to using this Canmake Cheek Gradation 06 Candy Stripes recently. After having discontinued 01 Pink Stripes, Canmake replaced it with this 06 Candy Stripes, which is an excellent move if you ask me! Yes, I like this 06 Candy Stripes a lot. Actually, I like it the best out of all the Cheek Gradations, and I even made a convert out of my mum ^.^ She was a long time loyal fan of the 01 Pink Stripes, as in she wouldn't use any other blush I sent and stuck with just 01 Pink Stripes. When I told her that color had disappeared from all the drugstores I frequent, understandably she freaked and made me go on a hunt for a backup source online. And then along the way I snuck in one of these 06 Candy Stripes for her and what do you know, Pink Stripes? What Pink Stripes?

So what is so special about this 06 Candy Stripes, you may wonder. Well, the concept of these Cheek Gradations is that each has 4 bars of color that are more or less in the same scheme. Together they form a (duh) gradient, from the darker and more pigmented bars at the top for coloring to the lighter and much sheerer bars at the bottom for highlighting. The most obvious feature that sets this 06 Candy Stripes apart from all the other Cheek Gradations is that it doesn't quite follow this gradation concept, having two very distinct and equally pigmented color bars at the top, one a bright tropical orange and the other a bright hot pink. Also the very bottom bar, instead of being a pale pink or pale beige that goes well with the over all color scheme, it's a stark chalk white.

06 Candy Stripes. All pictures taken indoor with flash, unless otherwise noted.

Other than that utterly gorgeous orange, I can also see an improvement in the formula of the blush itself. It's not softer and is possibly even more pigmented than the 2 previous gradations, the 04 Chocolate Stripes and 05 Peach Stripes. The first time I used this I didn't expect it to be so pigmented and proceeded to apply it the same way I apply all my blushes - swiping the brush twice, once to the left and once to the right to coat the brush evenly, then shake off the extras. Holy crap, the result was cheeks so clowny red I had to wipe them off with a tissue! So now when using this 06 Candy Stripes I swipe my brush only once, and very lightly so, dabbing the blush onto my cheek to even out the application before blending. Even then, sometimes my cheeks still end up way too red and the color had to be wiped off a bit using fingertips. Eeps!

- 06 Candy Tripes: this blush sure appears shimmery, but it doesn't go on nearly as shimmery as the 04 Chocolate Stripes. The shimmers just give a nice glow and they do a good job in bringing out the cheek bones. I especially like appreciate the 2 distinct color bars at the top because I can use them separately. And when I'm not in the mood for (or don't the have guts to pull off) that fiery orange or that bright hot pink, or when I'm plain lazy, I just blend all 4 bars together and get a more feminine reddish pink blush. Love, love, love this 06 Candy Stripes!

Top to bottom:
- Bright tropical orange, scatter shimmer, medium intensity. Applies luminous and is much brighter and more vividly orange than the oranges in 02 Orange Stripes.
- Bright hot pink, scatter shimmer, medium intensity. Applies luminous.
- Princess pink, fine shimmer, low intensity. Applies with just a touch more shimmer than the top 2 colors.
- Chalk white, shimmer, low intensity. Out of the 4 color bars, this is the most shimmery and opaque. I know it doesn't appear that way in the swatch, and that's because I only swatched it lightly.

Top dot: all color bars swirled together. Picture taken in natural light without flash.

See my previous posts:
- Canmake Cheek Gradation
- Canmake Cheek Gradation Part II