9 Ways to Shine

Tarte 9 Ways to Shine Cheek Wardrobe ($35.00 for 0.69 oz.) is a new, limited edition set of stacked cheek colors. Each stack contains three shades--technically, a highlighter, blush, and bronzer--with a flip-top mirror and swiveling compacts underneath the first shade. There are three stacks included in the set, which I love seeing in a holiday set as it would be easy to gift any of the stacks to a friend or family member (either as a gift or because it doesn't work for you).

The packaging was more substantial than I expected--I felt like it was nicer than Tarte's regular packaging by feel and weight. The set contains $100.05 worth of product (going off of the full-sized blushes at $29.00 and containing 0.20 oz. of product).

Tarte's cheek colors all come with a 12-hour wear time claim, which is where they tend to fall short, though they are longer-wearing at around nine hours of really solid wear. Some of the more matte blush hues are on the thinner side, which I find can be harder to apply over bare skin because they react with any natural oils/slip on my skin and can darken/adhere strongly, so blending is made more difficult. I find I can alleviate the blendability issue by applying over powdered skin (whether bare skin or with foundation).

There was one major dud in the set--Peppermint Mocha--and the highlighters were nice (creamy, pigmented, and blendable without any tricks). Aside from Peppermint Mocha, the blushes were in-line with past experiences with the Amazonian Clay blush formula, so if you're normally a fan, this set is a great one to think about.

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