Review: Hard Candy Hide & Glow: In Love

The first Hard Candy Hide & Glow Cheek Color I was excited about, was the very first one in this photograph, In Love. In Love is a coral peach duo and the first I picked up at the store. I thought this might be a good dupe of a couple of my favorite cheek blushes.

It's a dual sided product, one of the sides is more sheer and glowy (right) and the other is more of a cream (though there is a very slight shimmer to the product (left). I would imagine the right shade would be a nice cheek highlight as the shimmer is not over the top.

I compared it to two other cream/gel blushes in my collection: Tarte Tipsy (which as you'll see in the next series of photographs is a pretty good dupe) and NYC Pink Flash (LE) which is much more pigmented than the Hard Candy version.

It's quite hard to swatch cheek products as the color you get on your hand isn't going to be what you see when you blend it into the cheeks but here are my thoughts.

Tarte Tipsy is slightly more orange than either of the In Love (HC) blushes but is a similar texture, more of a gel or sheer formula. NYC Pink Flash (LE) is more of a cream product and far more pigmented, however, when you sheer it out, it will probably look similar to the cream side of the Hard Candy In Love. Both of the Hard Candy sides show up more coral than peach.

I hope I haven't confused anyone! I'd imagine all of these would look similar once blended into the cheek. I also feel this Hard Candy version would be better on lighter skin tones or those looking for a less pigmented blush but a formula that can be layered for increased intensity. Personally, the NYC can be a bit much for me to apply in the morning when I'm not fully awake yet. These are a great alternative as they are very hard to 'mess up'. For those that don't like the tackiness of the Tarte product, these Hard Candy blushes aren't as sticky. I think they are somewhere in between the tacky gel consistency (but with the same sort of color payoff) and the NYC true cream formula. And they manage to feel moist without feeling oily.


The Hard Candy blushes lasted through a work day for me but I tend to have drier cheeks than average and I would recommend that oilier skin types set these with powder blush.

For $6 I'm impressed! If you like the Tarte cheekstains, I would try these if you don't want to pay the $30 for the Tarte version. These are definitely more of a gel formula, and not as pigmented as the NYC variety.

Ingredients: caprylic/capric tryglyceride, trimethylopropane trisosterate, hydroxystearic acid, isostearyl isostearate, disostearyl malate, polybutene, isononyl isonanoate, ozokerite, 1,2-hezanediol, capryl gycol, ricinus communs (castor) seed oil. May Contain: titanium dioxide, mica, iron oxides, carmine, silica

not vegan, made in USA

PS I tried editing the swatches of all of these and it took way longer than I thought it would so don't expect pretty swatch collage thingies in the next series of them!