Blush: Makeup hero of a masked generation
Adding face color can infuse warmth into complexions
It may be a surprise to learn that blush, a makeup item long associated with 1980s-style glamour, is poised to make a major comeback. While lipstick or contour can’t be seen under our masks, and wearing lots of eye makeup feels like too much of a dedicated effort, blush is becoming the hero bit of makeup that can add an instant pop of color to the face.
Blush sales and searches appear to be increasing at a time when other makeup categories are not. According to new research from the data provider Semrush, blush is the third-most searched beauty product in the United States, and the data science team at Pattern, an e-commerce partner, has reported a rise in demand for blush.
Adding face color is fun, after all. “Too much time inside, without the inspiration of others and the opportunity to decorate our faces, makes it all the more fun when we can,” said Caroline Barnes, a makeup artist. She recently did a high-impact blush look around the eyes of actress Nicola Coughlan, who stars in the Shondaland period romp “Bridgerton.”
Here, then, are some new ways to wear blush — how to choose the right color, how to apply it and more — in the age of wearing a mask.
Brighten your complexion
When used strategically, blush can infuse warmth into any complexion, a much-needed boost when you’ve been indoors for months. “You can
add instant brightness by adding touches of corals and pinks,” Barnes said.
She suggests applying it in a soft circular shape over the apples of your cheeks to warm up a complexion.
“If a complexion doesn’t have enough life, there are so many ways to wear it,” said Katie Jane Hughes, a makeup artist who works with Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. One of Hughes’ favorite techniques is to go for a “superblushy look,” making it the focus of your entire makeup look.
Go retro
With mask wearing, blush has moved up, above the mask line, closer to the eyes and on the tops of cheekbones. “The old way that I used to do it has become new again,” said makeup artist Sandy Linter, who wrote the book “Disco Beauty” and did makeup for Diana Ross, Jerry Hall and Jackie O. “It’s high up
on the cheekbone, and then it swings into like a C shape into the temples. Make sure you blend it so it doesn’t look that obvious.”
Barnes has also been using maximum blush and taking inspiration from the ’70s and ’80s, extending color over the eye socket and sweeping it up toward the temples. “You can use the same shade over your entire lid or wash the blush over your usual eye shadow. Either way works,” she said.
Hughes has been taking an equally retro approach, sweeping blush over the eyes and brow instead of doing a complicated eye makeup look. “I think of it like a soft little accent in an ’80s kind of way, all the way up into the eye and the brow,” she said.
Opt for monochromatic themes
Another modern touch
for those who aren’t blush averse: Choose your blush and coordinate the rest of your makeup look to it. “Pick whatever your color is, and make the blush and everything else match,” said Hughes, who recently experimented with a bright pink style. “Then just do loads of lashes. It’s so chic and simple but impactful because it’s harmonious.”
Mix and match your colors
The great thing about blush is that choosing the right color isn’t hard, and the new style of blush favors the bold. Chiao Li Hsu, another makeup artist, said that there are no rules when it comes to color, and she works with neon yellows or vivid reds when applying blush over the apples of the cheeks and up into the eye sockets.
“You can use any color,” Hsu said. She is also a fan of using draping techniques, taking deeper pinks and reds under the eyes and over the cheeks.
“It’s fun to play with several shades and textures of pink to make a monochromatic look more exciting and to add a bit of depth,” she said.
Other makeup artists like to mix multiple colors to get a custom look. “Enhance your bone structure by using a tone a couple of shades darker than your skin tone, mixed with a nude hue,” Barnes said.
Choose a texture, and a tool
Today’s blushes come in many textures — cream, powder, liquid. When wearing a mask, a liquid tint that dries down is the most transfer-proof option. But you can also use blush to change the texture of your complexion overall.
“Cream is great for dry skin,” Barnes said. “And powder for oily skin as a rule, but it’s personal preference. Natural makeup works well with creams, but with powder you can be more direct on where you place it, and it tends to last longer.”
Linter prefers to play with multiple textures. “You can wear both textures at once and layer,” she said. But the tool is just as important as the texture you choose. Opt for a sponge when using creams; fingers work fine with liquids; and use a brush for powders.
“Brushes are very, very important,” she said. “Some big, soft brushes are very ineffective. They don’t do anything. For blush, you need to have a pretty fullsized brush, but it needs to be a little on the firm side so that when you hit your skin, it controls the powder and keeps it so you can spread it correctly in the right place.”
Blend, but not too much
Blending is the key to making blush modern, but not so much that you overdo it and lose the color.
“If I’m watching people put makeup on and they’re not fans of blush, I can always tell because they’ll apply it and then ferociously rub it in,” Hughes said. “What ends up happening is they rub it off as they’re blending it in. Just pick up a tiny bit, apply it slowly. You shouldn’t see the payoff immediately. You should see it gradually.”
At the end of the day, however, Hughes cautions that there are really no strict rules with blush. “If you like an actual cheek moment, do it,” she said.
“If you like a high-up-intothe-temples moment, you should do that. Experiment to see what you like.”
It wasn’t just a war for freedom. It was a war for the future.
Blacks who took up arms during the Civil War weren’t just fighting for themselves. They were fighting for their children and all who came after. They were fighting for tomorrow.
“The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship,” by Deborah Willis, delivers much more than the formal, carefully posed photographs of men in uniforms and their heartfelt letters home and to the world.
The book reminds us that even during this ultimate fight for freedom — when Blacks and some whites were on the same side — even then, equality was barely a notion. Although Blacks had served in the Navy since 1792, they were prohibited from the Army. Bigots doubted Blacks’ bravery or feared their armed rebellion. Activists like Frederick Douglass knew that when Blacks were allowed onto the battlefield, it would be a giant leap forward for civil rights.
“Let the black man get upon his person the brass letters, US,” Douglass wrote. “Let him get an eagle on his button and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket, and there is no power on the earth, or under the earth, that can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship in the United States.”
When the Civil War began, though, Blacks were still banned from the Army, yet many joined volunteer regiments where they could.
On April 18, 1861, six days after the war began, five volunteer militias from Pennsylvania marched through Baltimore to defend the Capitol in Washington., D.C. An angry group of Confederate sympathizers met them. The mob grew outraged when they saw a Black man in uniform, Nick Biddle.
“Violence erupted,” wrote historian John David Hoptak. “They were pelted with stones, bricks, bottles and whatever else the vehement mob could find; some were even clubbed and knocked down by a few welllanded punches.”
Biddle was already 65 and had served in the militia since 1840. At the start of the war, he was a captain’s orderly. Yelling racial slurs, someone threw a brick at Biddle’s face. His white comrades helped the injured man to his feet. The militia continued its march and finally managed to board a train to D.C.
This marked the first bloodshed in the Civil War, and it was a Black man’s.
By 1862, President Lincoln had quietly authorized the
Union Army to form Black regiments. Douglass even wrote an early recruiting poster. “Men of Color To Arms! To Arms!” it began. “Fail Now, & Our Race Is Doomed.”
Once in uniform, Blacks urged others to enlist. “Spring forth to the call and show to the world that you are men,” soldier Milton M. Holland urged in a letter to an Ohio paper. “There is a brighter day coming for the colored man.”
Of course, once they enlisted, some realized that day had not yet come. One anonymous Black soldier with the 55th Regiment
Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry wrote the New York Weekly Anglo-African that, although promised $13 a month, Black soldiers were paid only $7.
“How the authorities expect our families to live without the means to buy bread, pay house rent, and meet the other incidental expenses of living in these terrible times, we know not,” he wrote. “Are our parents, wives, children and sisters to suffer, while we, their natural protectors, are fighting the battles of the nation? We leave the government and Congress to answer.”
Still, Blacks were eager to fight for freedom. Some had even escaped slavery to do so. Now, though, they endured twin tortures. During battle, Black soldiers confronted crashing cannonballs. After, they worried about the families they had left behind. Fears of their fate, and thoughts of revenge, lingered.
“I want you to understand that where ever you and I meets we are enmays,” a furious Spottswood Rice wrote the slaveholder who still held his two daughters. Although the Union soldier was currently in the hospital, “My children is my own and I expect to get them,” he warned. “And I will have a power and authority to bear them away and execute vengences on them that holds my child.”
Some of the letters Willis collects were written on behalf of the soldiers. Often, they were from worried mothers. “Mr Abraham Lincon I wont to knw sir if you please wether I can have my son relest from the arme he is all the subport I have now his father is Dead,” wrote Jane Welcome of Carlisles, Pa. “I am old and my head is blossoming for the grave and if you dou I hope the lord will bless you.”
An official at the Bureau of Colored Troops wrote back,
denying her request.
Although they had to fight just to serve, more than 200,000 Black men defended the Union on land and at sea by the end of the Civil War. Roughly 40,000 Black men gave the ultimate sacrifice, and 25 Black soldiers and sailors were eventually awarded the Medal of Honor. Women also served as nurses, cooks, and seamstresses. Harriet Tubman worked as a spy.
Naturally, Douglass was right: American Blacks’ service in the Civil War would reflect well on them. Whether they were born free or broke their own chains, Black soldiers proved they would fight as bravely and capably as their white brothers.
Some served under fire in other ways, such as Dr. Alexander Thomas Augusta. When war broke out, he offered his services as a physician for six years, writing to Lincoln, “I can be of use to my race.” Augusta became the U.S. Army’s first Black physician. There were groundbreaking