Urban Decay Afterglow Blush Rapture

Yay!! We’re back!!! Well, Photobucket is back that is. For just over 2 weeks I wasn’t able to upload a single image to their serves due to a power outage at their server station. Today I gave it another try and it worked again. So high time to be reviewing some makeup again. The blush I wore most at the end of 2019? Urban Decay’s Rapture, which was a surprising hit to be as I liked this so much that I barely used another blush all December.

Urban Decay Afterglow Blush Rapture // Review, Swatch, Makeuplook

There is one downside to this blush: it will be incredibly difficult to find. The Afterglow blushes seem to have been discontinued, but some shades are still available. They used to retail for €31.50 at full price. Currently whatever shades are left retail for €18.50 on the official Urban Decay website. Rumour has it that these blushes are being reformulated, but nothing solid has been announced yet. And the only thing that pops into my mind is: why Urban Decay? Why were these taken off the shelves, because these are some of my favorite all time blushes!

The Packaging

The first reason why Urban Decay should not be getting rid of these is the packaging. This is some of the cleverest, most practical blush packaging ever done. These compacts are small, easy to store and easy to carry around. The mesh top allows the shade of the blush to come through so it is always easy to tell what shade you are reaching for if you have more of these.

The Blush

Rapture is a bit of a weird blush shade so we’ll zoom in to that in a minute. Let’s first talk about the formula of these. The Urban Decay Afterglow blushes have a sublime formula. These are longlasting, easy to blend and the shade variety these came in was astounding. Yes, I also own the red and purple that were part of this range. But they also did a bunch of neutrals and that is the shade range that Rapture would fall into.

The Shade

Rapture is one of the darker neutrals in the range. I also own Video, but that is a lot more brown toned. Rapture more of a mauve shade, but then on the darker end of the spectrum and that is why I hadn’t reached for this much yet. I was afraid this would be too dark and intense for my fair skin. However, I found that this is a very workable blush that blends out into a perfect plummy mauve on my cheeks. There is a hint of shine to this, but mostly this is an all matte blush.

The Swatch

As you can see in this swatch, this blush is highly pigmented. For a blush that doesn’t have to be a good thing though. Too pigmented blush can be hard to blend and make look natural. However, with this I feel it is difficult to slap on too much. I just lightly dab my blush brush into the blush and swirl the color onto the apples of my cheeks. The result: a stunning mauve blush that pulls a bit more plum, which makes it quite unique to my collection.

The Application

Applied to the cheeks you can see it adds enough color, but nothing too crazy. Despite this looking quite dark in the pan, Rapture looks natural and goes very well on my complexion. Probably because it is a bit more cool toned and not too warm, this blush just blends nicely into my complexion. I have been reaching for no other blush all of December and that says a lot about how much I like this blush.

My Final Thoughts

Yes I am not done raving about the Urban Decay Afterglow blush in Rapture just yet. So sad that this is so difficult to find by now, but I just can’t help but post this review, because I love this blush so so much. It is a great neutral pick that works well with almost any look, doesn’t overpower the rest of your makeup and it lasts well. What more does a girl want from a blush?

What blush last surprised you?