City Color Intense Blush Palettes Review & Swatches

I'm just full of City Color sneak peeks this week, and today I wanted to review and swatch the new Intense Blush Palettes ($14.99). These will be launching on June 1 at CityColorCosmetics.com and let me tell you...you're really going to want these! 

There are two collections...one contains pink & mauve shades, and the other has corals & peaches. One reason I love blush palettes is that they make it easy to mix and match and layer different shades. I've already been playing around with these, creating different combinations and I'm totally in love with the shades and formula. Let's take a look!

Packaging: 

These palettes come in very travel-friendly cardboard palettes with a magnetic closure. They're very thin, making them easy to store or to stash in a suitcase. They're way too large to put in your purse (unless you have a big tote like I do) and they don't come with a mirror or any brushes. 

It's so hard to determine the size of something when you're looking at it online, so I wanted to compare these palettes to some other blush palettes you might be familiar with. As you can see below, these are quite large next to the elf Blush Palette and the Gwen Stefani blush palette from Urban Decay. 

Formula: 

If you're familiar with City Color's products, you might be familiar with their Intense Blush Quads. These new palettes seem to have replaced the quads as they're no longer offered on City Color's website, so I decided to compare them to see if the formula is the same. The quads came in four shades, but I only have one of them, which I found at Five below last summer. 

The formula in the new palette feels exactly the same as the old quads and I was able to find two dupes between the quad I have and the pink-toned palette. The two middle shades in the quad (Barbie pink and mauve) are the same as the bottom left shade and bottom right shade in the pink palette.

Since I don't own any of the other quads, I'm not sure if there are any more dupes, but I would assume so, especially since those have been discontinued. It seems like maybe City Color wanted to consolidate them into a different format, but didn't want to get rid of this formula. I'm glad because these blushes are amazing!

You guys know I love City Color's Be Matte blushes, and these feel very similar in that they're soft, blendable and pigmented. The difference is, these have more of a "wow" factor when it comes to pigmentation...you barely have to dip your brush into the pan to get great color payoff and they don't require any buildup. Also, they kind of stain your cheeks a bit, due to the high level of pigment in the formula so they're more long lasting than the Be Matte blushes (which are pretty long lasting to begin with). 

Also, most of the shades in these palettes seem to be mattes...there are a few that have a teeny tiny bit of shimmer in them if you look closely but when they're on your cheeks they appear to have a matte finish. 

Collection #1 has beautiful pink and mauve shades that lean cooler, ranging from subtle to bright. I can see these working on any skin tone. Most of these would show up easily on deeper skin tones and the only one that's a little dark for me is the reddish shade (4th swatch from the left). 

Collection #1 

Collection #1 Swatches

Collection #2 has warmer peach and coral-toned blushes and is also stunning. The top three shades are a bit more nude/bronze while the bottom row is your pop of color.

Collection #2

Collection #2 Swatches

Overall, these are a must-buy if you're a blush lover like me! The only way it wouldn't be worth it is if you already have the four Intense Blush Quads...then you'd likely find some repeat shades here. But if you don't, you'll be in for a treat with these...they're a high-end formula at a much more affordable price!

You can grab these on June 1 at CityColorCosmetics.com

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