Beauty Care: ColourPop Hotline Cheek Dew Serum Blush Review & Swatches

Hotline

ColourPop Hotline Cheek Dew Serum Blush ($7.00 for 0.48 oz.) is a medium, pinky-coral with soft, warm undertones and a soft sheen. It had sheer color coverage, which I did not find buildable in practice due to the overly emollient, slippery formula that was difficult to work with.

The consistency was lightweight, non-sticky but very fluid to the point where it seemed rather runny. This resulted in a product that did not want to adhere well to bare skin (or over foundation), was prone to sliding around whenever I tried to blend out the edges, and rarely looked even. If I managed to dab it on just-so immediately, it was the best I could do; the more I tried to faff with it, the worst it looked.

It had somewhat of a dry down–it was a lot less runny after 20 seconds but was movable. I often tried to give it some time to dry down a little before trying to blend it out, so it wasn’t as prone to sliding around, but it tended to lift away instead. This shade stayed on for five and a half hours before fading noticeably.

FURTHER READING: Formula Overview for details on general performance and characteristics (like scent).

Top Dupes
Formula Overview

Top Dupes

View Swatches View All Dupes

MAC Heat Index (LE, $30.00) is more shimmery, cooler (90% similar).
ColourPop Ooh She's Blushing (LE, $8.00) is brighter (90% similar).
Wayne Goss Sunny (PiP, ) is more shimmery (90% similar).
ColourPop Picnic Time (LE, $8.00) is more shimmery, lighter, warmer (90% similar).
Tom Ford Beauty Flush (Discontinued) (DC, $60.00) is more shimmery, lighter (90% similar).
Milani Coral Crush (P, $8.99) is more shimmery, lighter (90% similar).
Salt New York Peach (P, $16.00) is more shimmery, lighter (90% similar).
NARS I Need a Man (LE, $30.00) is more shimmery, warmer (90% similar).
Surratt Beauty Ponceau (P, $32.00) is more shimmery, cooler (85% similar).
ColourPop Holiday (2019) (P, $8.00) is more shimmery, lighter, warmer (85% similar).

View Swatches

Formula Overview

$7.00/0.48 oz. - $14.58 Per Ounce

The formula is supposed to have "buildable coverage" with a "hint" of dewiness that can be applied with fingertips, sponge, or a duo fiber brush and is recommended to be applied prior to powder products. I struggled to apply the formula, and I tried using fingertips, sponges, and various brushes both over foundation, under foundation, over bare skin, and even over powder (which is the opposite of what they say to do!).

For me, it seemed like the issue was that there was way too much slip in the product, so instead of applying and blending out, the color just pushed around. It had the worst application when I used fingertips to apply, which I'd apply by patting and pressing the color (gently!) onto my cheeks and using the edge of my fingertip to soften. This is my go-to method with cream-based cheek colors, and it usually works, but I couldn't get the color to stay and place.

I tried using a sponge, but the sponge seemed to absorb a lot of the color that it made it hard to get detectable coverage out of it. I found a stippling brush to work better, and I gently flicked the brush against my cheeks to deposit color, waited 10 seconds, and then tried to diffuse and even out the color. This worked somewhat and sometimes, but it did not always work, unfortunately, and when it didn't, there was almost no visible color.

Since it seemed overly emollient, for the majority of my application attempts, I squeezed out product on the back of my hand, so I could swirl or pick up product as it had dried out a little bit, but this did not help much! The "best" method I found was to gently dab the product onto my cheeks using fingertips, let it sit for five to 10 seconds, then use a synthetic brush to soften the edges with the gentlest touch and only do each area once, and then leave it alone and accept whatever the outcome was.

It did not play well with the various base products I tried--a mix of liquid foundations and tinted moisturizers, both set and unset--as it was prone to sliding them around or lifting them up. They were better over bare skin, but they were a real challenge to work with. They were also not buildable in my experience as this resulted in the first layer moving around and lifting away from the main area and leaving a raised edge of product.

The consistency was very fluid to the point where it felt runny; it would slide down the back of my hand with the aid of gravity and do so quickly. It took awhile to dry down, and it was somewhat movable with light dewiness in its finish but wasn't tacky. They lasted around six hours on me before fading visibly.

Browse all of our ColourPop Cheek Dew Serum Blush swatches.