Physician’s Formula Butter Blush & Highlight

If there is a US drugstore brand that is very often hyped up but that is so difficult to find if you’re in Europe, it’s Physician’s Formula. It is not impossible: it is available online, but you will always pay much more and products take a long time to become available. So when Stash Matters contacted me about doing a makeup swap last year, I knew I wanted to request some of the Physician’s Formula Butter Blush and Highlighters. She very kindly put in two blushes and one highlighter and by now I have tried them enough to give you my thoughts. Are these worthy the hype?

Physician’s Formula Butter Blush & Highlighter | Vintage Rouge, Plum Rose & Pearl

I got three products to review for you today. Two of the Butter blushes. Depending on where you get these you will pay somewhere between €10 and €15 excluding shipping. Physician’s Formula is a brand that is a bit more expensive to begin with, so this is much more like paying L’Oreal prices than anything else. The highlighter retails for a similar price point. I recommend buying Physician’s Formula from Iherb. That website has the best stock and is the most affordable.

The Swatches

Because this is a 3-in-1 review, we are starting with swatches. Below I will highlight each of the products and show them separately. From left to right, you can find the blush in vintage rouge, the blush in plum rose and the highlighter in pearl. The swatches look quite nice, but these blushes are quite light and therefore do not show up well when swatched. These are more of a natural look, which is the nature of the product. So if you think these look a tad sheer: that’s what the product is supposed to do, so I’m not mad about it.

Physician’s Formula Butter Blush Vintage Rouge

When I requested these in the swap I wasn’t sure what color to get. Vintage Rouge is not rouge at all: it is more of a warm peachy tone. So that confused me. I also mixed up some of the names: that is one of the downsides of buying products if you have never seen them ‘live’. In the end this blush is much prettier than I thought it would be. This would not have been my first pick just by looking at it, but it ended up being my favorite of the two.

Vintage Rouge looks like a very boring blush in the pan. And it is! But that is a good thing! Because it is boring this is a warm toned blush that will work well with EVERYTHING. As long as the rest of your look is warm toned too, this will not clash and it will look stunning. It has a very neutral tone to it, which means it goes with everything: smokey eyes to very colorful looks.

The Application

This blush is so easy to throw on! This is one that I just love just for that reason. Vintage Rouge is a shade that you can just slap on and you’re out the door. A big fluffy brush probably works best with this and I feel it doesn’t fade throughout the day. It takes a few layers to show up, even on my fair skin tone, but that is what I like about this. You can wear this subtly or a bit more intense, but because of the shade this will never look crazy.

Look at that! Isn’t this a great, glowy cheek! Vintage Rouge has a touch of glow to it, but nothing too much. This won’t replace your highlighter any time soon. A solid favorite that is perfect year round, but works best on me in the spring/ summer time.

Physician’s Formula Butter Blush Plum Rose

Blush no. 2 was the one I really wanted to get. I love dusty rose blush tones: it is simply the most flattering on me and it works on me year round. These blushes are part of the Butter line and I already loved the Butter Bronzer that was launched first, so I knew I would love these too. The texture of these is creamy despite this being a powder. The tropical scent is not as strong on these as the bronzer, but there is a bit of a fragrance which has to be your cup of tea.

Plum Rose is much lighter than I had expected. This is not a blush that will work on very dark skin tones, that’s for sure. And that is an issue with many Physician’s Formula products: they are stunning and high quality but the brand mainly aims at fair skin tones. In 2019, that is not cool. This is light even for me! I like this though, because it does show up, but this is probably best for me in the winter when I am super duper pale.

The Application

Because this blush does VERY little to change the color of your cheeks. This adds a very subtle flush. So subtle that this will not work for most people. It has the same pleasant texture as Vintage Rouge, but where that can be built up to look more intense, this doesn’t really do that. You can really go to town with it though so this is not a blush that will make you look crazy either.

Full face you can see what I mean: you can clearly see the glow of the highlight and there is very little color to the cheek. It’s pretty, but it is a very particular look that I don’t think will suit everyone.

Physician’s Formula Butter Highlighter Pearl

Lastly, we need to talk about this absolutely gorgeous highlighter. I had requested a different shade, but apparently that is harder to find so Stashy got me the other lightest shade instead. Pearl really surprised me. You can really see it in these pictures, but it has a very subtle duochrome to it and flashes a bit pinky when the light hits it just right.

The texture of the highlighter is very different to the blushes. This is a cream to powder formula whereas the blushes are just a powder. The formula really reminds me of the Colourpop highlighter in Hippo. This is very similar to that Supershock Cheek formula. That is why I have been applying this in the same way: with a damp sponge. That way, you simply get the best result.

The Application

Out of the three, this product is definitely the most intense. You can build this up to be a high shine highlighter. Pearl is the perfect shade for me: it is more cool toned though so I feel it doesn’t go with everything, but in the end it works well enough. Some people have had problems with this product leaking out of the packaging, but mine is fine and not doing that.

The Conclusion

These three Physician’s Formula Butter products are all passing the test. My favorite here has to be the highlighter, because it simply packs the most of a punch. The blushes are both quite subtle so that has to be your cup of tea. Out of the two, I prefer Vintage Rouge over Plum Rose. I can use both though and I like them both for different reasons. Do you need to rush to the store and buy these? Not necessarily, because I am sure you will have something similar already in your makeup collection. However, if you are still looking for a great, subtle blush shade and a good cream to powder highlighter than these are definitely worth a closer look.

What is your experience with the Physician’s Formula Butter blush and highlighters?