Truth be told, if I could look like I’m wearing an Instagram filter every time I leave the house, I would. Not one of those ones that’s so smooth, it makes your nose disappear, but one that gives me my face, just a little bit better.
As it stands, though, I tend to stay far, far away from beauty filters in general, because I like to be realistic about the way that I look. Still – that doesn’t mean I’m immune to wanting to look better. So when I heard that Patrick Ta, the celebrity makeup artist responsible for some of Gigi Hadid and Emily Ratajkowski’s best looks, was going viral for a blush hack that made your face look filtered, I knew I was going to give it a try.
Typically, when I apply my blush, I use either a powder or a cream formula, but not both. I also wait to apply it until after I’ve set my undereye area. But from what I saw online, this trick would require me to do things a little differently than what I’m used to.
Luckily, I already had everything I needed to try it out at home. To test the hack, I only needed three things: the Patrick Ta Major Headlines Blush ($36), a bright white setting powder (I used the Huda Beauty Easy Bake Loose Setting Powder ($38)), and a pink-tinted setting powder (I used the Givenchy Prisme Libre Loose Setting and Finishing Powder ($60)). After finishing my eye makeup, slapping on a little CC cream, and applying liquid concealer but no powder, it was time to begin.
The Patrick Ta Major Headlines blush comes with both a powder and cream formula, and although my initial instinct was to start with cream and later set it with powder, the videos I saw online instructed me to do the exact opposite. I started by dipping my blush brush in the blush powder and blending it out on the apples and high points of my cheeks. From there, I took my bright white setting powder and set my undereye area with it. Next, I layered on the pink setting powder underneath my eye and dusted off the excess using a large fluffy brush.
I am normally extremely sparing when it comes to applying powder underneath my eyes because that area gets very dry, so while I was in the thick of application, I didn’t have high hopes that this was going to look good. However, I decided to trust the process. For the last step, I dipped my blush brush in the cream formula and applied it to my cheeks, bringing it all the way up to the waterline of my eye and blending everything out.
When I took a look in the mirror to survey the results, I was pretty shocked by how great my face looked. I had minimal eye and base makeup on, but the blush hack was truly giving. I had dark spots and blemishes all over my face, but by some magical power unknown to me, my skin looked flawless. I am not even exaggerating when I say I looked more like Emrata than I ever have in my entire life – and that’s saying something. I looked like a doll; I looked like a model – I’m sorry to keep tooting my own horn, but I looked really fucking good!
All in all, I’m fully obsessed with this hack, and I will be using it every single time I do my makeup in the future. I genuinely don’t know how it works (I’m not a scientist, OK?), but the results are truly worth the results.
