Makeup trends come and go pretty quickly nowadays, and it can be hard to keep up with all of the micro trends out there, especially when they require purchasing entirely new products. Recently, however, there was one that I just couldn’t let pass me by: the “jelly doughnut blush” trend. For starters, I love blush hacks. Plus, this trend only involves two products (which I already owned), and it looked super easy. And finally, in an effort to find the love of my life and get over my ex-boyfriend once and for all, I recently started going on dates again, which means I have way more occasions to wear makeup. (OK, so I’ve been on two total dates, but still.)
The original trend makes use of the Benefit Benetint ($26), a red cheek and lip stain, and the Benefit High Beam Highlighter ($26), a pearlescent liquid highlighter. The two products work well together, but you could use any liquid or stain blush and liquid highlighter that you have on hand.
I tested this new trend right before a first date, which was honestly a little risky. Thankfully, everything worked out OK. I started by doing my entire pre-date skin-care routine (which has a lot of steps if you can believe it), and then I moved on to makeup. I ended up doing a full beat with eyeshadow, foundation, mascara, contour – the works – prior to adding the jelly doughnut blush. I wasn’t sure how it would turn out, and with the minutes counting down before meeting my potential husband (spoiler alert: he wasn’t), I was a little stressed.
I started by using the doe-foot applicator on the Benefit High Beam Highlighter to draw a circle on the high points of my cheeks. From there, I took the Benefit Benetint and added a dot right smack in the center of that circle. This created the mini jelly doughnut. Then, I took a fluffy brush and blended everything out, leaving me with the most gorgeous highlighted-blush look; it wasn’t too intense, which was perfect because I didn’t want anything too over-the-top for my date.
I love a natural look, so the subtlety of Benefit’s highlighter was perfect for me. That said, if you personally want a more impactful shine or you have a dark complexion, I would opt for a highlighter with a little more pigment to it, like the Iconic London Rollaway Glow Highlighter ($29) in a shade like Champagne Chic.
The real beauty of this hack is that you can test it out with similar products you already have at home. I’m planning on re-creating this look in the future without any base makeup because I think it’ll look fantastic on fresh skin. I’ll also test blending it out with a beauty sponge next time rather than a brush to see if that makes a difference. I’m genuinely obsessed with how easy it was to do, and I love that I only needed two products to achieve such a stunning look.
Renee Rodriguez (she/her) is a staff writer and social producer for PS. She writes across all verticals, but her main areas of expertise focus on fashion and beauty content with an emphasis on reviews and editor experiments. She also produces social content for the PS TikTok and Instagram accounts.
